Mastitis is one of the major problems challenging the dairy industry worldwide. Among the various organisms causing mastitis, Staphylococcus aureus is considered to be one of the main pathogens causing this disease. More effective therapeutic or preventive approaches are sorely needed. The predominance of staphylococcal capsular polysaccharide type 5 and 8 among isolates from cows seems to be a greater variation in the distribution of capsular serotypes. In the present study 32 S. aureus isolated from milk samples of subclinical mastitis cows from different farms in Central Java, were identified by using conventional methods and by molecular analysis amplifying the gene encoding 23S rRNA. The isolates were further characterized for the genes encoding capsular polysaccharide type 5 (cap5) and type 8 (cap8). Based on cultural and biochemical properties as well as by amplification of a S. aureus specific section of the 23S rRNA gene, all 32 isolates were identified as S. aureus. The PCR amplification of the gene segment encoding the capsular polysaccharide yielded cap5 with a size of 880 by for most (93.75%) of the isolates investigated. However, the capsular polysaccharide cap8 with an amplicon size of 1147 by were observed only of 6.25% from the isolates
Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus, capsular
polysachharide, mastiti
