Prevalence of EnterotoxigenicClostridium perfringensIsolates in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Area Soils and Home Kitchens

Abstract

In the United States and Europe, food poisoning due to Clostridium perfringens type A is predominantly caused by C. perfringens isolates carrying a chromosomal enterotoxin gene (cpe). Neither the reservoir for these isolates nor the point in the food chain where these bacteria contaminate foods is currently understood. Therefore, the current study investigated whether type A isolates carrying a chromosomal cpe gene are present in two potential reservoirs, i.e., soil and home kitchen surfaces. No C. perfringens isolates were recovered from home kitchen surfaces, but most surveyed soil samples contained C. perfringens. The recovered soil isolates were predominantly type A, but some type C, D, and E soil isolates were also identified. All cpe-positive isolates recovered from soil were genotyped as type A, with their cpe genes on cpe plasmids rather than the chromosome. However, two cpe-positive soil isolates did not carry a classical cpe plasmid. Both of those atypical cpe-positive soil isolates were sporulation capable yet failed to produce C. perfringens enterotoxin, possibly because of differences in their upstream promoter regions. Collectively these results suggest that neither soil nor home kitchen surfaces represent major reservoirs for type A isolates with chromosomal cpe that cause food poisoning, although soil does appear to be a reservoir for cpe-positive isolates causing non-food-borne gastrointestinal diseases.

Characterization of Virulence Plasmid Diversity among Clostridium perfringens Type B Isolates

“…However, that process must be rare given the scarcity of B isolates among the general C. perfringens population; e.g., no type B isolates were detected in Pittsburgh area soils (24). Potential conversion of type C or D isolates to type B by conjugative acquisition of toxin plasmids is probably limited, in part, by the relatively low-level environmental presence of type C and D isolates (24), but the potential plasmid incompatibility issues raised earlier could be another factor limiting the horizontal spread of beta-or epsilon-toxin plasmids to create type B isolates.…”

“…These bacteria are important pathogens of sheep but also cause disease in goats, calves, and foals (26). For unknown reasons, diseases caused by C. perfringens type B isolates apparently are restricted to certain geographic regions (24,25,26). C. perfringens type B enterotoxemias initiate when these bacteria proliferate in the gut, accompanied by toxin production.…”

Toxinotyping and antimicrobial susceptibility of enterotoxigenic Clostridium perfringens isolates from mutton, beef and chicken meat

“…Clostridium perfringens is a gram positive, rod shaped, spore forming, anaerobic bacteria (Bergey 2009;Quinn et al 2002) which is a common inhabitant of soil and gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals (García and Heredia 2011;Li et al 2007). Apart from causing enteric and systemic infections in animals and poultry, C. perfringens is responsible for food poisoning cases in humans worldwide (Skariyachan et al 2010).…”

Caracterización molecular y resistencia antimicrobiana de aislamientos de Clostridium perfringens de diferentes orígenes en Costa Rica

“…En el presente trabajo se demostró una distribución ecológica de C. perfringens similar a la de otras regiones, con un predominio del toxinotipo A (Petit et al 1999), tanto en sedimentos marinos como suelos (Fach & Popoff 1997); Li et al (2007) informaron que el 98.8% de las cepas de suelos en Estados Unidos eran tipo A. Este toxinotipo predomina en la flora intestinal de muchos animales, incluyendo el ser humano (Heikinheimo & Korkeala 2005, Heikinheimo et al 2006) y es responsable de muchos cuadros clínicos en humanos, tales como gangrena, diarrea asociada a antibióticos (Joshy et al 2006), así como cuadros gastrointestinales en otros animales (Petit et al 1999, Baums et al 2004 (Kuske et al 2006, Li et al 2007. A pesar de que la incidencia de cepas enterotoxigénicas de C. perfringens sea baja, éstas representan un riesgo porque pueden dar origen a cuadros clínicos o brotes.…”