A Comparison of the Reverse Passive Latex Agglutination and Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay Techniques for Detection of Staphylococcal Enterotoxins

Abstract

A study was carried out to compare the Reverse Passive Latex Agglutination (RPLA) and Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) techniques for detection of staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs). One hundred and one Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) isolates were recovered from milk and meat samples. Isolates were tested for their ability to produce any of the staphylococcal enterotoxin types A, B, C, and D. Sixty seven S. aureus isolates were found to be enterotoxigenic, using ELISA, while 62 isolates were found to be enterotoxigenic with RPLA technique. Staphylococcal enterotoxin C was the most frequent enterotoxin detected by both ELISA and RPLA. This study found no significant difference in the sensitivity of ELISA and RPLA techniques for detection of staphylococcal enterotoxins (t=0.908; df=3; p=0.431). It was concluded that ELISA and RPLA are comparable tests and any of them can be used to test for staphylococcal enterotoxins. However, the RPLA test appears to be most suitable for screening a large number of isolates for staphylococcal enterotoxins because it is less cumbersome, less costly and rapid.