J Vet Sci.  2008 Sep;9(3):327-329. 10.4142/jvs.2008.9.3.327.

Distribution of the putative virulence factor encoding gene sheta in Staphylococcus hyicus strains of various origins

• Kanbar T
• Voytenko A
• Alber J
• Lammler C
• Weiss R
• Skvortzov

• KMID: 1718587
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4142/jvs.2008.9.3.327

Abstract

In the present study, Staphylococcus (S.) hyicus strains isolated in Russia (n = 23) and Germany (n = 17) were investigated for the prevalence of the previously described genes sheta and shetb. Sheta was detected in 16 S. hyicus strains. Sheta-positive strains were mainly found among strains isolated from exudative epidermitis, and frequently together with the exfoliative toxin-encoding genes exhD and exhC. Partial sequencing of sheta in a single S. hyicus strain revealed an almost complete match with the sheta sequence obtained from GenBank. None of the S. hyicus strains displayed a positive reaction with the shetb-specific oligonucleotide primer used in the present study. According to the present results, the exotoxin encoding gene sheta seems to be distributed among S. hyicus strains in Russia and Germany. The toxigenic potential of this exotoxin, which does not have the classical structure of a staphylococcal exfoliative toxin, remains to be elucidated.

Keyword

exfoliative toxins; exudative epidermitis; sheta; shetb; Staphylococcus hyicus

MeSH Terms

Animals
Cattle
Cattle Diseases/epidemiology/microbiology
DNA Primers
Dog Diseases/epidemiology/microbiology
Dogs
Epidermitis, Exudative, of Swine/epidemiology
Exfoliatins/*genetics/immunology
Germany
Pneumonia/epidemiology/veterinary
Russia
Staphylococcal Infections/immunology/veterinary
Staphylococcus aureus/genetics/*pathogenicity
Swine
Swine Diseases/epidemiology
Virulence/*genetics
Virulence Factors/genetics/immunology

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Typical amplicons of sheta-positive Staphylococcus hyicus (1, 2, 3); sheta-negative Staphylococcus hyicus (4, 5).

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  Fig. 2 Dendrogram analysis of the sheta gene sequence of the present study and the published exfoliative toxin gene sequences of the genera Staphylococcus and Streptococcus. The dendrogram was prepared using the computer program ClustalW.

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