Abstract
Staphylococcus aureus
in food is a consequence of inadequate hygienic handling and processing, posing a potential risk to public health. The current study aimed to characterize virulence factors, as well as antimicrobial resistance of
Staphylococcus aureus
and methicillin-resistant
S. aureus
(MRSA) isolated from retail chicken products and hand swabs from vendors in Egypt. In addition, genetic relatedness of the isolates from chicken and humans was evaluated by polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) using protein A as a target. A total of 110 samples were collected from chicken products (
n
= 80) and vendors (
n
= 30). Overall, 30 (37.5%) chicken products samples were positive for
S. aureus
, whereas hand swabs from meat handlers revealed that 18 (60%) were positive. Ten MRSA strains were characterized by the presence of the
mec
A gene, comprising seven isolates from chicken and three from humans. Virulence-associated factors were evaluated by PCR, revealing that 31.3% of
S. aureus
isolates harbored the Panton–Valentine leukocidin (PVL) gene, whereas 10.4% were positive for the
sea
and
sed
genes each, and only two isolates were positive for γ-hemolysin–associated gene. Genotyping using
spa
PCR-RFLP showed identical restriction banding patterns of MRSA isolates of human and chicken meat origin, indicating the genetic relatedness of the isolates. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to characterize PVL-positive MRSA from chicken products and to utilize
spa-
RFLP for evaluating the genetic relatedness between MRSA of human and chicken origin in Egypt.