Staphylococcus aureus is a major foodborne pathogen in raw and ready-to-eat meat products. In this study, the effectiveness of methanolic extracts of Artemisia herbal-alba in inhibiting pan-resistant and enterotoxic Staphylococcus aureus was investigated. The first analysis showed a high prevalence (33%) of coagulase-positive staphylococci in imported meat samples from retail stores. Examination of antibiotic resistance patterns revealed that staphylococcal antibiogram resistance profiles were diverse: five strains demonstrated resistance to at least one antimicrobial agent, fourteen isolates demonstrated multidrug resistance (MDR) and one resistant to all test antibiotics (PAN). Multiplex PCR of pan-Staphylococcus strains revealed positive serotypes for the enterotoxin genes seb, seg and sei at 665.05 bp, 277.99 bp and 460.74 bp, respectively, and a positive serotype for the mec-A gene at 538.45 bp. Compared to the tetracycline effect, methanolic extracts of Artemisia herba-alba showed significant inhibitory effects against pan-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Real-time quantitative PCR data analysis showed that Artemisia herba-alba methanolic extracts caused a significant decrease in the expression levels of the genes mecA, mecC, sei, seg and seb. Therefore, the methanolic extract of Artemisia herba-alba has the potential to be a promising natural product to control foodborne pathogens and could be valuable for food safety applications.
Key words: Staphylococcal food poisoning, antimicrobial activity, Artemisia herba-alba, staphylococcal enterotoxins, MDR, Extracts
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