Ocorrência de enterotoxina estafilocócica em queijo artesanal produzido na serra geral-mg

Abstract

The artisanal cheeses produced in Serra Geral-MG, have economic and cultural relevance for the region. Recently, a study characterizing the artisanal Serra Geral cheese detected the presence of high counts of Staphylococcus spp. in the product during processing and over 60 days of ripening. This work aimed to investigate the occurrence of staphylococcal enterotoxin in these cheeses up to 60 days of ripening. Forty-eight cheese samples were evaluated from 12 cheese making facilities that adopted different processing flowcharts, in which six of them added “pingo” to the filtered milk (group A), and the others did not add this ingredient (group B). Each cheese factory provided fresh and ripened cheeses for 14, 21 and 60 days. The presence of enterotoxins was investigated by an enzyme-linked fluorescent immunoassay (ELFA). Staphylococcal enterotoxins were detected in eight samples, five belonging to group A and three belonging to group B. No statistical differences was found for the estimated concentration of enterotoxins between the two processing groups and among the different maturation times. No correlation was observed between the enterotoxin estimated concentration and the count of Staphylococcus spp., but there was a moderate correlation between the estimated concentration of enterotoxins and the counts of coagulase-positive Staphylococcus.