103 Bas.J.Vet.Res.Vol.19, No.2, 2020. VIRULENCE POTENTIAL OF S. aureus ISOLATED FROM IMPORTED AND LOCAL CHICKEN DEPENDING ON THE PHENOL SOLUBLE MODULINS (PSMMEC) IN DUHOK PROVINCE, KURDISTAN REGION OF IRAQ Nacheervan Majeed Ghaffar College of veterinary medicine, Duhok research center, University of Duhok (Received 4 July 2020 ,Accepted 14 July 2020) Key word: (SCC), PSM, mecA Corresponding Author: Nacheervan.ghaffar@uod.ac ABSTRACT Staphylococcus aureus is considered as one of the major foodborne pathogens in human and animals which can lead to a wide range of diseases, including food poisoning. The toxins of S. aureus play an important role in disease pathogenesis, contributing to both injury of the host tissues and the immune response. One of these toxins is phenol-soluble modulin (PSM) peptides which has the ability of immune invasion and considered as a cytolytic toxin. Commonly, mobile genetic elements (MGE) of S. aureus that carrying antibiotic resistance gene do not carry the virulence genes, however, PSMmec has been identified within the methicillin resistance staphylococcus-encoding MGE SCCmec. This study was conducted for six months, over-all 200 whole chicken carcasses were collected including (100) local chicken and (100) imported one from supermarkets in Duhok province. The samples for S. aureus were cultured on mannitol salt agar and then were confirmed using colony morphology, biochemical test like, catalase test and coagulase test, in addition to the species specific primer (nuc gene) for PCR. The PCR positive samples were selected and used in this study. The aim of this study was to evaluate the virulence potential of S. aureus isolated from imported and local chickens depending on PSMmec-complex PCR (spanning PSM, xylR and mecR genes) and mecA. The results of this study shows that 46 isolates out of 57 from imported chickens were carried mecA (methicillin resistant isolates) from