Importance of Staphylococcus aureus in bovine subclinical mastitis: presence of enterotoxins, shock syndrome toxin and relationship with somatic cell count

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus is one of the major agents of contagious mastitis and has high incidence worldwide in most of dairy herds. Besides the economic impact, the public health aspects of the enterotoxins and the toxic shock syndrome toxin are very important. The enterotoxin A is frequently correlated with food related illness in man and can be associated with raw, pasteurized and other milk products. The toxic shock syndrome is caused most frequently by toxic shock syndrome toxin, but enterotoxins B and C also can be implicated. The aim of this study was to verify the occurrence of Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxins and toxic shock syndrome toxin producers. Milk samples from cows with clinical and subclinical mastitis were collected. The results of toxins research by "celofane over agar" to TNAase and by commercial kit to enterotoxins were associated with the electronic somatic cell count. Total of 209 milk samples from cows with clinical and subclinical mastitis caused by S.aureus were verified. A total of 209 (98.86%) were TNAase producers, nine samples (4.39%) were enterotoxin producers, and one of them (0.49%) was EED producer, three (1.46%) EEC producers and three (1.46%) EEB producers. The toxic shock syndrome toxin was not identified in any of the samples assayed on this study. There was no statistical correlation between the somatic cell count results and the samples with toxin production.