Journal of Clinical Microbiology, July 1999, p. 2209-2214, Vol. 37, No. 7
0095-1137/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch,
Received 22 December 1998/Returned for modification 1 February
1999/Accepted 9 April 1999
Clostridium perfringens is a common cause of food-borne
illness. The illness is characterized by profuse diarrhea and acute abdominal pain. Since the illness is usually self-limiting, many cases
are undiagnosed and/or not reported. Investigations are often pursued
after an outbreak involving large numbers of people in institutions, at
restaurants, or at catered meals. Serotyping has been used in the past
to assist epidemiologic investigations of C. perfringens
outbreaks. However, serotyping reagents are not widely available, and
many isolates are often untypeable with existing reagents. We developed
a pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) method for molecular
subtyping of C. perfringens isolates to aid in
epidemiologic investigations of food-borne outbreaks. Six restriction
endonucleases (SmaI, ApaI, FspI,
MluI, KspI, and XbaI) were
evaluated with a select panel of C. perfringens strains. SmaI was chosen for further studies because it produced 11 to 13 well-distributed bands of 40 to ~1,100 kb which provided good discrimination between isolates. Seventeen distinct patterns were obtained with 62 isolates from seven outbreak investigations or control
strains. In general, multiple isolates from a single individual had
indistinguishable PFGE patterns. Epidemiologically unrelated isolates
(outbreak or control strains) had unique patterns; isolates from
different individuals within an outbreak had similar, if not identical,
patterns. PFGE identifies clonal relationships of isolates which will
assist epidemiologic investigations of food-borne-disease outbreaks
caused by C. perfringens.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Rd., Mailstop C03,
Atlanta, GA 30333. Phone: (404) 639-3867. Fax: (404) 639-3333. E-mail: SHT5{at}CDC.GOV.
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