BACKGROUND AND AIMS: ) remains a leading global foodborne pathogen harbouring novel enterotoxin genes (NEGs) encoding superantigenic toxins with conditionally enhanced pathogenicity, representing a critical food safety hazard. This review characterizes NEG features, pathogenic mechanisms, multi-layered regulatory networks, and identifies key research challenges. METHODS: . RESULTS: cytotoxicity, intestinal microenvironment disruption, and immune evasion. Regulation involves a complex network of Agr/σB/SarA/Rot-mediated transcriptional control, phosphorylation/lactylation modifications and environmental sensing, exhibiting marked geographical divergence. Current limitations include technical resolution constraints, insufficient physiological model fidelity and incomplete regulatory crosstalk elucidation. CONCLUSIONS: Future research should prioritize transcription factor interaction mechanisms, growth-toxin correlation prediction models and multi-omics-based network decipherment. This review provides a foundational framework for NEG research to inform food safety risk assessment and targeted contamination control strategies.
Guan et al. (Mon,) studied this question.