[Temperature dependence of staphylococcal enterotoxin A production by Staphylococcus aureus].

Staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP) results from the consumption of foods containing sufficient amounts of one or more preformed staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs). SEs are heat stable and can withstand heat at 121 degrees C for 10 min. Therefore, after SEs were produced in food, reheating of food is ineffective in preventing SFP. Among the SEs, SEA appears to be most frequently associated with food poisoning. SEA can be produced at the temperature range of 10-46 degrees C. Many researchers investigated SEA in various foods such as milk, cream, egg and mushroom at some temperatures. As the temperature is raised, SEA concentration was increased. But, because detailed relationships between SEA production and incubation temperature were not examined, we investigated the effect of incubation temperature (10, 15, 20 and 37 degrees C) on SEA productions by using various SEA producing strains of S. aureus. As a result, relationships were found between incubation temperature and SEA production as well as the studies of others. However, little relationship was found between the maximal SEA concentrations at each incubation temperature. SEA production does not necessarily depend on temperature. This result suggests that SEA production is strongly influenced by the intrinsic properties of strains as well as the environmental factors such as temperature and nutrients.