Involvement of enterotoxins G and I in staphylococcal toxic shock syndromeand staphylococcal scarlet fever

We investigated the involvement of the recently described staphylococcal en terotoxins G and I in toxic shock syndrome. We reexamined Staphylococcus au reus strains isolated from patients with menstrual and nonmenstrual toxic s hock syndrome (nine cases) or staphylococcal scarlet fever (three cases). T hese strains were selected because they produced none of the toxins known t o be involved in these syndromes (toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 and enteroto xins A, B, C, and D), enterotoxin E or H, or exfoliative toxin A or B, desp ite the fact that superantigenic toxins were detected in a CD69-specific fl ow cytometry assay measuring T-cell activation. Sets of primers specific to the enterotoxin G and I genes (seg and sei, respectively) were designed an d used for PCR amplification. All of the strains were positive for sg and s ei, Sequence analysis confirmed that the PCR products, corresponded to the target genes. We suggest that staphylococcal enterotoxins G and I may be ca pable of causing human staphylococcal toxic shock syndrome and staphylococc al scarlet fever.