Food safety has attracted extensive attention around the world, and food-borne diseases have become one of the major threats to health. Staphylococcus aureus is a major food-borne pathogen worldwide and a frequent contaminant of foodstuffs. Staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) produced by some S. aureus strains will lead to staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP) outbreaks. The most common symptoms caused by ingestion of SEs within food are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and cramps. Children will suffer SFP by ingesting as little as 100 ng of SEs, and only a few micrograms of SEs are enough to cause SPF in vulnerable populations. Therefore, it is a great challenge and of urgent need to detect and identify SEs rapidly and accurately for governmental and non-governmental agencies, including the military, public health departments, and health care facilities. Herein, an overview of SE detection has been provided through a comprehensive literature survey.
Keywords: Staphylococcal enterotoxins; analysis; detection; food-borne poisoning.