Abstract
A total of 100 Jordanian clinical
Staphylococcus aureus
isolates was analysed for the presence of the enterotoxin genes
sea
,
seb
,
sec
,
sed
and
see
using multiplex PCR. Twenty-three isolates (23 %) were potentially enterotoxigenic. The prevalence of
sea
,
sec
and
sea
plus
sec
among the total clinical isolates was 15, 4 and 4 %, respectively. None of the isolates harboured
sed
,
seb
or
see
genes.
S. aureus
isolates were subjected to DNA fingerprinting by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis to test whether isolates harbouring the toxin genes were genetically clustered. A total of 13 genotypes was identified at a 47 % similarity level. Genotypes I and V accounted for the largest number of enterotoxigenic isolates (19 %). This study has demonstrated the genetic diversity of Jordanian clinical
S. aureus
isolates and shown that the presence of the toxin genes is not genotype specific.