Characterization of enterotoxigenic Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from bovine mastitis in north-east Switzerland.

Thirty-four strains of enterotoxin-producing Staphylococcus aureus obtained from milk samples of 34 dairy cows suffering from mastitis from 34 different farms in north-east Switzerland were identified and further characterized by pheno- and genotypic methods. This included the identification of staphylococcal enterotoxin (SE) types, an antibiotic resistance testing, the appraisal of hemolysis, the egg yolk reaction, the detection of the clumping factor and protein A by means of a latex agglutination, the PCR amplification of a S. aureus specific part of the gene encoding the 16S-23S rRNA "intergenic spacer" region and a species specific part of the 23S rRNA-gene, the PCR amplification of the clumping factor (clfA) gene, the X region and the IgG-binding region of the protein A (spa) gene, the coagulase (coa) gene and additionally a macrorestriction analysis of the chromosomal DNA. Within the 26 cultures which formed a single SE, there were 23 SEC- and three SED-formers. Eight cultures were SEAD formers. It was remarkable that 22 SEC formers were also positive for TSST-1. Eighteen of the 23 SEC-formers could be classified as being of the same phenotype. Most of the cultures of one enterotoxin type also showed a great uniformity in the size and number of repeats of the X region as well as in the size of the IgG-binding region of protein A gene and in the size of the coagulase gene. Macrorestriction analysis revealed 11 PFGE patterns. These were in part only different from each other in a few fragments and thus displayed close clonal relations. The results of the present investigation show that a broad distribution of identical or closely related enterotoxin-producing S. aureus clones seem to contribute to the bovine mastitis problem in north-east Switzerland.