1.C.128.  The  Staphylococcus Pyogenic Enterotoxin (SPE) Family

Staphylococcal enterotoxin-like W (SElW) is a widely prevalent enterotoxin-like protein that functions as a classical staphylococcal superantigen (SAg) and has been shown to exacerbate infections caused by the S. aureus epidemic clone CC398.  Enterotoxin-producing Staphylococcus aureus is a common cause of staphylococcal food poisoning (al Bustan et al. 1996).  The presence of genes encoding staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs), including the classical enterotoxins (sea-see), non-classical enterotoxins (seg-seu), exfoliative toxins (eta-etd) and toxic shock syndrome toxin-1 (tst-1) have been investigated (Wiśniewski et al. 2023). Enterotoxin F may play a role in toxic shock syndrome.(Notermans et al. 1983). Only 5 (SEA to SEE) out of 27 known staphylococcal enterotoxins can be analyzed using commercially available kits. Six genes (seg, sei, sem, sen, seo, and seu), encoding putative and undetectable enterotoxins, are located on the enterotoxin gene cluster (egc), which is part of the Staphylococcus aureus genomic island vSaβ. These enterotoxins are likely involved in staphylococcal food-poisoning outbreaks (Schwendimann et al. 2021).  Staphylococcal enterotoxins promote virulence in bacterial keratitis (Johnson et al. 2023).  A comprehensive review of toxin diversity, molecular mechanisms, and clinical implications has appeared. This review examines the pathogenic mechanisms of Staphylococcus aureus, emphasizing its toxin-driven virulence factors, including pore-forming toxins, exfoliative toxins, and superantigens. (Di Bella et al. 2025).