The objective of this study was to detect C. difficile A/B toxins and to isolate strains of C. perfringens and C. difficile from diarrheic and non-diarrheic dogs in Brazil. Stool samples were collected from 57 dogs, 35 of which were apparently healthy, and 22 of which were diarrheic. C. difficile A/B toxins were detected by ELISA, and C. perfringens and C. difficile were identified by multiplex PCR. C. difficile A/B toxins were detected in 21 samples (36.8%). Of these, 16 (76.2%) were from diarrheic dogs, and five (23.8%) were from non-diarrheic dogs. Twelve C. difficile strains (21.1%) were isolated, of which ten were A+B+ and two were A−B−. All non-toxigenic strains were isolated from non-diarrheic animals. The binary toxin gene cdtB was found in one strain, which was A+B+ and was derived from a non-diarrheic dog. C. perfringens strains were isolated from 40 samples (70.2%). Of these, 18 (45%) were from the diarrheic group, and 22 (55%) belonged to the non-diarrheic group. All isolates were classified as C. perfringens type A and there was an association between the detection of the cpe gene and the presence of diarrhea. Interestingly, ten strains (25%) were positive for the presence of the cpb2 gene. The high rate of detection of the A/B toxins in non-diarrheic dogs suggests the occurrence of subclinical disease in dogs or carriage of its toxins without disease. More studies are needed to elucidate the epidemiology of C. difficile and C. perfringens in dogs and to better our understanding of C. difficile as a zoonotic agent. This is the first study to report the binary toxin gene in C. difficile strains isolated from dogs in Brazil.

PCT has a high negative predictive value (94%) and lower PCT levels seems to be a good tool for excluding coinfection, particularly for patients without shock.

Our findings suggest that early oseltamivir administration was associated with favourable outcomes among critically ill ventilated patients with 2009 H1N1 virus infection.

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MIRU-VNTR typing produced 16 distinct genotypes, with 53 isolates forming eight of the groups, and individual isolates with unique VNTR profiles forming the remaining eight groups. The allelic diversity of each VNTR locus was calculated and only two of the 12-MIRU-VNTR loci presented scores with either a moderate (0.4, MIRU16) or high (0.6, MIRU26) discriminatory index (h). Both typing methods produced similar discriminatory indexes (spoligotyping h = 0.85; MIRU-VNTR h = 0.86) and the combination of the two methods increased the h value to 0.94, resulting in 29 distinct patterns. These results confirm that spoligotyping and VNTR analysis are valuable tools for studying the molecular epidemiology of M. bovis infections in Brazil. Key words: Mycobacterium bovis -spoligotyping -MIRU-VNTR typing -bovine tuberculosis -molecular epidemiologyGenotyping of M. bovis from Brazil • Patrícia Martins Parreiras et al. 65While IS6110-RFLP lacks resolution in this species, spoligotyping has been demonstrated to be a fast and cost-effective method for first-line typing (Haddad et al. 2004). The MIRU-VNTR typing procedure has been extensively evaluated in M. tuberculosis and the recent data available about this method on M. bovis strains confirmed its considerable power of discrimination (Sola et al. 2003, Michel et al. 2008, 2010. Smith et al. (2006) inferred that a combination of spoligotyping and VNTR typing resulted in the simplest and most cost-effective method for routine molecular typing and epidemiological tracing of bovine TB in Great Britain.Some previous studies have successfully employed techniques such as IS6110-RFLP and spoligotyping to genotype M. bovis strains isolated from cattle in Brazil (Zanini et al. 2001, Rodriguez et al. 2004), but as far as we know, no data exist on genotyping of M. bovis by combining spoligotyping and MIRU-VNTR typing in our country. We aimed to use spoligotyping and MIRU-VNTR typing to assess the genetic diversity of Brazilian M. bovis isolates. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sampling and conventional procedures -During 2001and 2002, tissue samples from cattle with lesions suggestive of TB were collected immediately after slaughter at the time of inspection in abattoirs. The study samples were collected in abattoirs that followed slaughter inspection procedures from the states of Amazonas (AM), Paraíba (PB), Distrito Federal (DF), Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), São Paulo, Santa Catarina (SC) and Minas Gerais (MG). The sampled specimens from respective carcasses were pooled, put on ice and sent to the Laboratório Nacional Agropecuário de Minas Gerais (Pedro Leopoldo, MG), where they were processed for inoculation in Stonebrink culture medium (Mota 1985). The cultures were incubated at 37ºC and verified for bacterial growth every week for a period of at least two months. Bacterial isolates were submitted to standard procedures for differentiation of certain species of the MTBC, including the evaluation of niacin production, nitrate reductase activity, Tween hydrolysis, catalase activity at 68ºC and resis...

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Enterotoxemia, a disease that affects domestic ruminants, is caused mainly by the epsilon toxin from Clostridium perfringens type D. Its eradication is virtually impossible, control and prophylaxis are based on systematic vaccination of herds with epsilon toxoids that are efficient in inducing protective antibody production. The use of recombinant toxins is one of the most promising of these strategies. This work evaluates the potency of a Cl. perfringens type D epsilon toxoid expressed by Escherichia coli administered to goats, sheep, and cattle. The etx gene was cloned into the pET-11a plasmid of E. coli strain BL21 to produce the recombinant toxin. Rabbits (n=8), goats, sheep, and cattle (n=5 for each species) were immunized with 0.2mg of the insoluble recombinant protein fraction to evaluate vaccine potency of the epsilon toxoid studied. Antibody titers were 40, 14.3, 26, and 13.1 IU/mL in the rabbit, goat, sheep, and cattle serum pools, respectively. The epsilon toxoid produced and tested in this work is adequate for immunization of ruminants against enterotoxemia.

Clostridium perfringens is an anaerobic bacterium that produces several toxins. Of these, the alpha, beta, and epsilon toxins are responsible for causing the most severe C. perfringens-related diseases in farm animals. The best way to control these diseases is through vaccination. However, commercially available vaccines are based on inactivated toxins and have many production drawbacks, which can be overcome through the use of recombinant antigens. In this study, we produced recombinant alpha, beta, and epsilon toxins in Escherichia coli to formulate a trivalent vaccine. Its effectiveness was evaluated through a potency test in rabbits, in which the vaccine generated 9.6, 24.4, and 25.0 IU/mL of neutralizing antibodies against the respective toxins. Following this, cattle, sheep, and goats received the same formulation, generating, respectively, 5.19 ± 0.48, 4.34 ± 0.43, and 4.70 ± 0.58 IU/mL against alpha toxin, 13.71 ± 1.17 IU/mL (for all three species) against beta toxin, and 12.74 ± 1.70, 7.66 ± 1.69, and 8.91 ± 2.14 IU/mL against epsilon toxin. These levels were above the minimum recommended by international protocols. As such, our vaccine was effective in generating protective antibodies and, thus, may represent an interesting alternative for the prevention of C. perfringens-related intoxications in farm animals.