Publications by authors named "Yacine Nia"

Food poisoning outbreaks frequently involve staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs). SEs include 33 distinct types and multiple sequence variants per SE type. Various mass spectrometry methods have been reported for the detection of SEs using a conventional bottom-up approach.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * Most isolates showed high resistance to antibiotics, particularly penicillin G (91.25%) and tetracycline (41.25%), with 12 being methicillin-resistant (MRSA).
  • * The study highlights the potential public health risk posed by biofilm producers and multidrug-resistant isolates in food products, urging for better control measures in the food production chain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates various typing methods for Staphylococcus aureus to determine the best approach for epidemiological investigations and outbreak analysis.
  • Methods compared included PFGE, MLST, cgMLST, cSNP, and enterotoxin profiling on 351 S. aureus isolates, assessing their discriminatory power and reliability.
  • Results showed that cgMLST and cSNP performed best in distinguishing strains and resolving population structure, while all methods effectively identified related strains in outbreak scenarios.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Staphylococcus aureus can colonize and infect a variety of animal species. In dairy herds, it is one of the leading causes of mastitis cases. The objective of this study was to characterize the S.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Notification of foodborne outbreaks has been mandatory in Europe since 2005, and surveillance is carried out along the entire food chain. Here we report the results obtained from laboratory investigations about four cases of foodborne outbreaks that occurred in Sicily between 2009 and 2016, deemed to be related to staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) and coagulase-positive (CPS) by the Local Public Health Authority. cheese samples were processed by culture methods for enumeration of CPS and immunoenzymatic assays for detection and differentiation of the SEs possibly contained in food samples.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The present study aimed to determine the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of . isolates from the nasal swabs of goats. A total of 232 nasal samples (one per animal) were collected from goats on 13 farms located in two regions of Algeria and were analyzed for the presence of .

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A is one of the leading causes of food poisoning outbreaks (FPOs) worldwide. Staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP) is induced by the ingestion of food containing sufficient levels of staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs). Currently, 33 SEs and SE-like toxins (SEls) have been described in the literature, but only five named "classical" enterotoxins are commonly investigated in FPOs due to lack of specific routine analytical techniques.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * In July 2022, six children experienced these symptoms after eating döner kebab from a takeaway in Turin, prompting a microbiological analysis that revealed high coagulase-positive staphylococci levels.
  • * The analysis confirmed the presence of staphylococcal enterotoxins type B; the contamination likely originated from food handlers, as nasal swabs from them also tested positive for CPS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Staphylococcal enterotoxins preformed in food are the causative agents of staphylococcal food poisoning outbreaks (SFPO). In this study we characterised in depth two coagulase-positive non-pigmented staphylococci involved in two independent outbreaks that occurred in France. While indistinguishable from Staphylococcus aureus using PCR methods and growth phenotype comparisons, both isolates were identified as Staphylococcus argenteus by whole genome sequencing.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Staphylococcal food poisoning outbreaks are caused by the ingestion of food contaminated with staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs). Among the 27 SEs described in the literature to date, only a few can be detected using immuno-enzymatic-based methods that are strongly dependent on the availability of antibodies. Liquid chromatography, coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS), has, therefore, been put forward as a relevant complementary method, but only for the detection of a limited number of enterotoxins.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We addressed here the need for improved sensitivity of top-down mass spectrometry for identification, differentiation, and absolute quantification of sequence variants of SEA, a bacterial toxin produced by and regularly involved in food poisoning outbreaks (FPO). We combined immunoaffinity enrichment, a protein internal standard, and optimized acquisition conditions, either by full-scan high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) or multiplex parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) mode. Deconvolution of full-scan HRMS signal and PRM detection of variant-specific fragment ions allowed confident identification of each SEA variant.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) are responsible for frequent food poisoning outbreaks worldwide. Specific identification of SEs is crucial for confirmation of food poisoning, tracking of the incriminated foods or food ingredients, and removal from the food chain. Here, we report on a new food testing protocol addressing the challenge of low abundance of SEs in contaminated food and high sequence heterogeneity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP) is one of the most common foodborne diseases worldwide, resulting from the ingestion of staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs), primarily SE type A (SEA), which is produced in food by enterotoxigenic strains of staphylococci, mainly . Since newly identified SEs have been shown to have emetic properties and the genes encoding them have been found in food involved in poisoning outbreaks, it is necessary to have reliable tools to prove the presence of the toxins themselves, to clarify the role played by these non-classical SEs, and to precisely document SFP outbreaks. We have produced and characterized monoclonal antibodies directed specifically against SE type G, H or I (SEG, SEH or SEI respectively) or SEA.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Staphylococcal food poisoning outbreaks are a major cause of food-borne illness in the European Union and their notification has been mandatory since 2005. Criteria for the enumeration of coagulase-positive Staphylococci (CPS) and the detection of staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) in cheese have been set down in Commission Regulation EC 2073/2005. Currently, few information are available about the distribution of SEs in naturally contaminated cheeses, including raw-milk and artisanal dairy products.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In summer 2017, a foodborne outbreak occurred in Central Italy, involving 26 workers employed in the post-earthquake reconstruction. After eating a meal provided by a catering service, they manifested gastrointestinal symptoms; 23 of them were hospitalized. The retrospective cohort study indicated the pasta salad as the most likely vehicle of poisoning.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

is an important aetiological agent of food intoxications in the European Union as it can cause gastro-enteritis through the production of various staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) in foods. Reported enterotoxin dose levels causing food-borne illness are scarce and varying. Three food poisoning outbreaks due to enterotoxin-producing strains which occurred in 2013 in Belgium are described.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • In August 2015, a food poisoning outbreak in Umbria, Italy, affected 24 customers after consuming dishes from a local restaurant, with symptoms arising about 3 hours post-meal.
  • An investigation revealed high levels of staphylococcal bacteria and toxins in the restaurant's Chantilly cream dessert, as well as contamination on kitchen surfaces and from food handlers.
  • The outbreak was traced back to a food handler, exacerbated by improper storage of the dessert, highlighting the crucial need for proper food safety practices to prevent such incidents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The aim of this work was to organize the first proficiency test (PT) dedicated to staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) detection in milk and buffer solutions. This paper describes the organization of the PT trial according to EN ISO 17043 requirements. Characterization of the SEB stock solution was performed using SDS-PAGE and SE-specific ELISA, and amino acid analysis was used to assign its protein concentration.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) account for a substantial number of food-poisoning outbreaks. European legislation (Commission Regulation 1441/2007) stipulates the reference procedure for SE analysis in milk and dairy products, which is based on extraction, dialysis concentration and immunochemical detection using one of two approved assays (VIDAS(®) SET2, Ridascreen(®) SET Total). However, certified reference materials (CRMs) are lacking to support laboratories in performing reliable detection of Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxin A (SEA) in relevant matrices at sub-nanogram per gram levels.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Staphylococcal food poisoning outbreaks are a major cause of foodborne illnesses in Europe and their notifications have been mandatory since 2005. Even though the European regulation on microbiological criteria for food defines a criterion on staphylococcal enterotoxin (SE) only in cheese and dairy products, European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) data reported that various types of food matrices are involved in staphylococcal food poisoning outbreaks. The European Screening Method (ESM) of European Union Reference Laboratory for Coagulase Positive Staphylococci (EURL CPS) was validated in 2011 for SE detection in food matrices and is currently the official method used for screening purposes in Europe.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Nanosized titanium dioxide (TiO2) is one of the most interesting and valuable nanomaterials for the construction industry but also in health care applications, food, and consumer goods, e.g., cosmetics.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The degradation of organotin compounds (OTC) in agricultural and forest soils is studied in sandy soil samples. Individual experiments involving the three butyl- and the three phenyltins were carried out during 90 d in controlled conditions (darkness, 28 degrees C, aerobic conditions, 13% moisture) and with spiking concentration representative of environmental levels (20-50 micrg(Sn) kg(-1)). After the validation of first-order degradation kinetic model, mechanisms involved throughout the study were considered.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF