Occurrence and Characteristics of Toxigenic in Retail Foods in Iran.

causes various toxigenic and invasive diseases in humans worldwide. This study examined the prevalence, virulence genes, and antibiotic resistance of isolates collected from 894 retail food samples in Ardabil, Iran. Staphylococcal cassette chromosome (SCC), , and multilocus sequence typing methods were employed to further investigate the molecular characteristics of methicillin-resistant (MRSA) isolates. The results revealed that 11.18% ( = 100) of food samples exhibited contamination with (10.50% methicillin-sensitive [MSSA] and 0.67% MRSA). Notably, raw minced meat (29.41%), Faloodeh (25%), and Olivier salad (21.42%) emerged as the most frequently contaminated food items. Among the 100 isolates of , 94% were characterized as MSSA, with the remaining 6% identified as MRSA. The highest resistance was observed for penicillin (12%). MRSA isolates exhibited significantly higher resistance rates. Seventy-nine percent of the isolates were positive for , 14% for , 8% for a , and 0% for enterotoxin-encoding genes. Sixteen percent of isolates harbored two or more staphylococcal enterotoxin genes, simultaneously. Moreover, 97%, 94%, 24%, and 22% of isolates were positive for , , , and virulence-encoding genes, respectively. No isolate was positive for the exfoliative toxins encoding and genes. MRSA isolates belonged to CC8 ( = 4) and CC22 ( = 2). Isolates in CC8 belonged to lineage ST239-MRSA-III and type t030; the isolates in CC22 belonged to ST22-MRSA-IV and types t310 and t223. In conclusion, a relatively high proportion of our retail food samples were contaminated with . The high incidence of isolates with toxigenic genes raises serious health concerns. Furthermore, the presence of MRSA lineages linked to humans suggests that retail foods may be contaminated with human origin.