Staphylococcus aureus causes a foodborne intoxication due to the production of enterotoxins and shows antimicrobial resistance, as in the case of methicillin-resistant strains (MRSA). Herein, we analyzed 207 ready-to-eat foods collected in Algeria, reporting a S. aureus prevalence of 23.2% (48/207) and respective loads of coagulase positive staphylococci (CPS) ranging from 1.00 ± 0.5 to 5.11 ± 0.24 Log CFU/g. The 48 S. aureus isolates were widely characterized by staphylococcal enterotoxin gene (SEg)-typing and 16S-23S rDNA intergenic spacer region (ISR)-PCR, as well as by detecting tst and mecA genes, genetic determinants of toxic shock syndrome toxin-1 and methicillin resistance, respectively. We found that the S. aureus isolates belonged to seven different SEg-types harboring the following combinations of genes: (1) selW, selX; (2) egc (seG, seI, seM, seN, seO), selW, selX; (3) seA, seH, seK, seQ, selW, selX; (4) seB, selW, selX; (5) seD, selJ, seR, selW, selX; (6) seH, selW, selX, selY; and (7) seA, egc, selW, selX, while among these, 2.1% and 4.2% were tst- and mecA- (staphylococcal chromosomal cassette mec-type IV) positive, respectively. Selected strains belonging to the 12 detected ISR-types were resistant towards antimicrobials including benzylpenicillin, ofloxacin, erythromycin, lincomycin, tetracyclin, kanamycin, oxacillin, and cefoxitin; 8.3% (1/12) were confirmed as MRSA and 16.7% (2/12) were multidrug resistant. The present study shows the heterogeneity of the S. aureus population in Algerian ready-to-eat foods as for their toxigenic potential and antimicrobial resistance, shedding the light on the quality and safety related to the consume of ready-to-eat foods in Algeria.

Staphylococcus aureus is a pathogenic microorganism of humans and animals, able to cause foodborne intoxication due to the production of staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) and to resist antibiotic treatment as in the case of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). In this study, we performed a genomic characterisation of 12 genetically diverse S. aureus strains isolated from ready-to-eat foods in Algiers (Algeria). Moreover, their ability to produce some classical and new staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) was investigated. The 12 S. aureus strains resulted to belong to nine known sequence types (STs) and to the novel ST7199 and ST7200. Furthermore, S. aureus SA46 was assigned to the European clone MRSA-ST80-SCCmec-IV. The 12 strains showed a wide endowment of se and sel (staphylococcal enterotoxin-like toxin) genes (sea, seb, sed, seg, seh, sei, selj, sek, sem, sen, seo, seq, ser, selu2, selw, selx, sey, sel30; ψent1-ψent2), including variants and pseudogenes, and harboured the enterotoxin gene cluster (egc) types 1 and 5. Additionally, they produced various amounts of SEA (64.54–345.02 ng/mL), SEB (2871.28–14739.17 ng/mL), SED (322.70–398.94 ng/mL), SEH (not detectable–239.48 ng/mL), and SER (36,720.10–63,176.06 ng/mL) depending on their genotypes. The genetic determinants related to their phenotypic resistance to β-lactams (blaZ, mecA), ofloxacin (gyrA-S84L), erythromycin (ermB), lincomycin (lmrS), kanamycin (aph(3′)-III, ant(6)-I), and tetracyclin (tet(L), tet(38)) were also detected. A plethora of virulence-related genes, including major virulence genes such as the tst gene, determinant for the toxic shock syndrome toxin-1, and the lukF-PV and lukS-PV genes, encoding the panton-valentine leukocidin (PVL), were present in the S. aureus strains, highlighting their pathogenic potential. Furthermore, a phylogenomic reconstruction including worldwide foodborne S. aureus showed a clear clustering based on ST and geographical origin rather than the source of isolation.