Sensitive to Staphylococcal Enterotoxins?
So is bioMérieux's VIDAS^® SET2

In the field of food safety, Staphylococcus aureus, S. intermedius, and S. hyicus are key players with respect to foodborne illness. Strains of these species have the ability to produce an extracellular protein called enterotoxin. When foods containing a high concentration of these enterotoxin producing strains are ingested, severe gastrointestinal illness occurs.

Foods associated with this type of foodborne illness include meat, poultry, canned mushrooms, dairy products, eggs, and mayonnaise. Most commonly the toxin-containing bacteria are introduced by humans or the animals from which the product is obtained. Humans handling the product may contaminate the food product during preparation or processing. The animal from which the product was derived may have been infected with the bacterial strain causing product contamination.

There are several serological types of enterotoxin including - A, B, C1, C2, C3, D and E. In determining the cause of foodborne illness associated with enterotoxins, it is important to be able to determine the presence of all of these serotypes.

To help food companies ensure the safety and quality of product and to avoid costly recalls, bioMérieux^® INDUSTRY, the worldwide leader in automated solutions for rapid pathogen detection, has developed a high-performance, next-generation detection kit for the screening and detection of Staph enterotoxins, based on its globally-recognized rapid VIDAS technology.

The VIDAS SET2 assay utilizes state-of-art ELFA technology, featuring a new combination of complementary monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies directed to different antigenic sites of a staphylococcal enterotoxin A, B, C1, C2, C3, D, and E. The antibodies used in the SET2 assay have undergone a treatment process resulting in removal of the Fc fragment, which reduces possible interference with food matrices and nonspecific binding of other bacteria that have the potential to generate false positive results, thus increasing specificity of the kit. The release of the two smaller Fab fragments optimizes the positioning of the antibody and favors recognition of the antigen, resulting in increased sensitivity.

The SET2 assay performance was tested by bioMérieux on 143 food matrices during an external evaluation and 137 food matrices during an internal evaluation. The assay specificity was 99.6%.

As a result of the antibody treatment process coupled with the bioMérieux know-how in immunoassay development, the SET2 limit of detection varies between 0.1 and 0.25 ngl ml depending on the toxin tested; making SET 2 more sensitive than other available methods.

The SET2 assay has completed the independent study for the AOAC RI approval process with the study manuscript currently under review by the AOAC committee.

Learn more about VIDAS assays for Food or Water Testing.

VIDAS SET2 Printable Brochure

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