Bacteriological and molecular studies on toxigenic Clostridium perfringens in milk and some milk products

Abstract

Two hundred random samples of milk, kareish cheese, yoghurt and ice-cream (50 for each) were examined microbiologically for the presence of Clostridium perfringens, their enterotoxigencity and their antibiotic sensitivity. Clostridium perfringens was isolated from 3 (6%) milk samples, 4 (8%) kareish cheese samples and it could not be isolated from any examined samples of yoghurt and ice-cream. The majority of C. perfringens isolates recovered from milk and milk products were susceptible to ofloxacin, ampicillin + sulbactam and norfloxacin (100%), vancomycin, tetracycline, metronidazole and amoxicillin + clavulinic acid (83.3%) and clindamycin (66.7%). The majority were resistant to cephalothin (100%), sulphamethoxazole + trimethoprim (83.3%), oxacillin and chloramphenicol (66.7%). Molecular studies using multiplex PCR technique for detection of alpha toxin gene and C.perfringens types "A" enterotoxin gene revealed that the 7 isolates of C. perfringens (100%) were positive for alpha toxin gene and only 2 out of 7 isolates (28.57%) were positive for enterotoxin gene .

Genotyping, Antibiotic Resistance and Biofilm Formation Ability of Clostridium perfringens Isolated from Raw Milk, Dairy Products and Human Consumers

“…The cpa gene was found in all C. perfringens isolates in our study indicating the predominance of type A strains. This is consistent with other researches (Abd El Tawab et al, 2016;Akhi et al, 2015;Osama et al, 2015). Type A is usually isolated from the intestine of apparently healthy humans and animals, therefore, it's a role in pathogenicity is controversy (Fernandez-Miyakawa and Redondo, 2016).…”

“…In our study, C. perfringens was identified in 6.7% buffalo milk, 3.3% cow milk and 5% camel milk. These findings are comparable with 6% reported from raw milk samples in Egypt (Abd El Tawab et al, 2016). Another study in Egypt reported the isolation of C. perfringens from 4.5% (16/357) of cow milk samples and 4% (1/25) from buffalo milk (Osman et al, 2009).…”

“…In the current study, 17 (4.7%) of the examined milk and milk products samples were contaminated with C. perfringens. This percentage coincides with 6.6% (Turchi et al, 2016) from ewe's milk, 5% (Abd Elaal, 2008) in yoghurt and kariesh cheese and 3.5 % (Abd El Tawab et al, 2016) in milk and dairy products in Egypt.…”

“…Regarding yoghurt samples, 5% of the samples were positive for C. perfringens (5%) in the present study. In contrary, C. perfringens was not isolated from yoghourt in other studies (Abd El Tawab et al, 2016;Abd Elaal, 2008).…”