Enterotoxigenicity and Antimicrobial Resistance of Isolated from Retail Food in China.

is one of the most common causes of zoonotic agent in the world, which are attributable to the contamination of food with enterotoxins. In this study, a total of 1,150 isolates were cultured from 27,000 retail foods items from 203 cities of 24 provinces in China in 2015 and were test for antimicrobial susceptibility. Additionally, the role of the genes responsible for the staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEA to SEE), methicillin resistance () and the toxigenic capabilities were also assessed. The results showed that 4.3% retail foods were contaminated with , and 7.9% retail foods isolates were positive. Some 97.6% of isolates were resistant to at least one antimicrobial compound, and 57.5% of these were multi drug resistant (MDR). Resistance to penicillin (83.7%, 963/1,150), was common, followed by linezolid (67.7%, 778/1,150) and erythromycin (52.1%, 599/1,150). The isolates cultured from raw meats showed high levels of resistant to tetracycline (42.8%), ciprofloxacin (17.4%), and chloramphenicol (12.0%) and expressed a MDR phenotype (62.4%). A total of 29.7% isolates harbored the classical SEs genes (, and ). The and genes were the most frequent SEs genes detected. Of note, 22% of the SEs genes positive harbored two or three SEs genes, and 16 isolates were confirmed with the capacity to simultaneously produce two or three enterotoxin types. Moreover, nearly 50% of the MRSA isolates were positive for at least one SE gene in this study. Therefore, it is important to monitor the antimicrobial susceptibility and enterotoxigenicity of MDR and MRSA in the food chain and to use these data to develop food safety measures, designed to reduce the contamination and transmission of this bacterium.