Prevalence and characterization of Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus argenteus isolated from rice and flour products in Guangdong, China

• Published in: International journal of food microbiology 2023-12, Vol.406, p.110348-110348, Article 110348
• Main Authors: Rong, Dongli, Liu, Zhenjie, Huang, Jiahui, Zhang, Feng, Wu, Qingping, Dai, Jingsha, Li, Yuanyu, Zhao, Miao, Li, Qi, Zhang, Jumei, Wu, Shi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Characterization; Rice and flour product; S. argenteus; S. aureus; WGS
• ISSN: 0168-1605; 1879-3460
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2023.110348

Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus argenteus have been implicated in food poisoning outbreaks, and have been found in various types of food products according to our previous study. Rice and flour products are popular and widely consumed around the world. However, limited data are available on the microbial safety of S. aureus in rice and flour products, and S. argenteus has never been reported. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the contamination of S. aureus and S. argenteus in 250 fresh rice and flour product samples from five cities in Guangdong, China. According to qualitative and quantitative analyses, 68 (27.2 %) and 11 (4.4 %) samples were positive for S. aureus and S. argenteus, including 9 samples that exceeded 100 MPN/g. For antibiotics susceptibility tests in 16 antibiotics, the S. aureus isolates exhibited higher rates of resistance and multidrug resistance than S. argenteus. The S. aureus and S. argenteus isolates were mainly resistant to penicillin (70.21 %; 79.17 %), tetracycline (20.21 %; 58.33 %) and azithromycin (19.68 %, 8.33 %). However, the other antibiotic resistance rates were