ISOLAMENTO DI STAPHILOCOCCUS AUREUS IN CAMPIONI DI LATTE: CARATTERIZZAZIONE MOLECOLARE E RELAZIONI CON IL CONTENUTO IN CELLULE SOMATICHE

It is well known that S. aureus is one of the major responsible in the etiology of clinical ruminant mastitis. Its presence is related with an increase of somatic cell count (SCC) in the milk. With the aim of evaluating the relationship between this milk parameter and virulence factors of S. aureus an analysis for the polymorphic gene of the bacterial coagulase has been performed on strains isolated from different farms. No correlation can be established between SSC number and coagulase amplicon size but further analysis are in progress with a larger number of isolates.