J Vet Sci. 2008 Sep;9(3):327-329   
 

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

Talah Kanbar1, Andrey V. Voytenko2, Jorg Alber1, Christoph Lammler1,*, Reinhard Weiss3, Vladimir N. Skvortzov1
 

1Institut fur Pharmakologie und Toxikologie, Justus-Liebig-Universitat Gie©¬en, Frankfurter Str. 107, 35392 Gie©¬en, Germany
2Kovalenko Research Institute of Experimental Veterinary Medicine, Kurskaya Str. 4, 308002 Belgorod, Russia
3Institut fur Hygiene und Infektionskrankheiten der Tiere, Justus-Liebig-Universitat Gie©¬en, Frankfurter Str. 85-91, 35392 Gie©¬en, Germany
* christoph.laemmler@vetmed.uni-giessen.de
 

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.