Very different toxins are responsible for the two types of gastrointestinal diseases caused by Bacillus cereus: the diarrhoeal syndrome is linked to nonhemolytic enterotoxin NHE, hemolytic enterotoxin HBL, and cytotoxin K, whereas emesis is caused by the action of cereulide. The used primers in multiplex PCR allowed the amplification of enterotoxin genes from strains, which were previously only detected by Southern blot analysis. The forward and reverse primers were each located in two different genes of the corresponding operons, targeting two toxin genes in a single reaction. The primers for detection of emetic toxin producers were directed against a part of the cereulide synthetase essential for cereulide production. The relative prevalence of toxin genes in relation to the total number of B. cereus isolates was 28.57% (8/28) for hbl, 100% (28/28) for nhe, 82% (23/28) for cyt K and 53.57% (15/28) for ces.

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