Mild Lactic Acid Stress Causes Strain-Dependent Reduction in SEC Protein Levels

Staphylococcal enterotoxin C (SEC) is a major cause of staphylococcal food poisoning in humans and plays role bovine mastitis. Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) benefits from competitive growth advantage under stress conditions encountered foods such as low pH. Therefore, understanding the stressors lactic acid on SEC production pivotal relevance to safety. However, stress-dependent cues their effects expression are still poorly understood. In this study, we used human animal strains harboring different variants order evaluate influence mild (pH 6.0) both transcriptional translational level. Although only modest decrease sec mRNA levels was observed stress, protein showed significant for some strains. These findings indicate that post-transcriptional modifications can act stress.