Purpose: In this study we aimed to investigate the presence and prevalence of staphylococci in ground beef and lamb meat samples, to detect 16S rRNA, mecA, nuc, pvl and femA genes and to determine pheno-/ genotypic antibiotic resistance profiles of obtained staphylococci isolates.
Methods: A total of 250 refrigerated ground meat samples were collected during a seven month period (September 2013 to March 2014) from randomly-selected retail stores in Diyarbakir, Turkey. Staphylococci were isolated using standard cultural methods and confirmed for species by the VITEK 2 compact identification system. Multiplex PCR and simplex PCR was performed to screen for some virulence genes and antibiotic resistance genes, and also phenotypic antibiotic resistance was tested for 24 antimicrobials.
Results: The prevalence of staphylococci was found to be higher in ground beef (86.4%) compared to ground lamb (62.4%). Eleven different staphylococci species were detected from 208 isolates. In 85 isolates, which were positive for Staphylococcus aureus, the presence of femA, mecA and pvl genes were 40%, 47% and 5.8%, respectively, while in 118 isolates positive for CoNS, rates were 0%, 10.1% and 0%, respectively. We determined that isolates had antibiotic resistances ranging from 0.9 - 85.5%.
Significance: Our study is the first study that reported detecting the pvl gene from MRSA isolates obtained from ground meat samples in Turkey. Also these study results show that ground meat samples are important vectors for staphylococci, which have pathogenic characteristics, in terms of food safety and subsequently public health, and also serve as an important reservoir of antibiotic resistant organisms.