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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, March 2001, p. 883-888, Vol. 39, No. 3
Department of Molecular Genetics and
Biochemistry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261,1 and
TechLab, Inc., Corporate Research Center, Blacksburg, Virginia
240602
Received 29 September 2000/Returned for modification 28 November
2000/Accepted 8 December 2000
Clostridium perfringens type A isolates producing
enterotoxin (CPE) are an important cause of food poisoning and
non-food-borne human gastrointestinal (GI) diseases, including
antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD). Recent studies suggest that
C. perfringens type A food poisoning is caused by C. perfringens isolates carrying a chromosomal cpe gene,
while CPE-associated non-food-borne GI diseases, such as AAD, are
caused by plasmid cpe isolates. Those putative
relationships, obtained predominantly with European isolates, were
tested in the current study by examining 34 cpe-positive, C. perfringens fecal isolates from North American cases of
food poisoning or AAD. These North American disease isolates were all classified as type A using a multiplex PCR assay. Furthermore, restriction fragment length polymorphism and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis genotyping analyses showed the North American AAD
isolates included in this collection all have a plasmid cpe gene, but the North American food poisoning isolates all carry a
chromosomal cpe gene. Western blotting demonstrated CPE
expression by nearly all of these disease isolates, confirming their
virulence potential. These findings with North American isolates
provide important new evidence that, regardless of geographic origin or date of isolation, plasmid cpe isolates cause most
CPE-associated AAD cases and chromosomal cpe isolates cause
most C. perfringens type A food poisoning cases. These
findings hold importance for the development of assays for
distinguishing cases of CPE-associated food-borne and non-food-borne
human GI illnesses and also identify potential epidemiologic tools for
determining the reservoirs for these illnesses.
0095-1137/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JCM.39.3.883-888.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Genotyping of Enterotoxigenic Clostridium
perfringens Fecal Isolates Associated with Antibiotic-Associated
Diarrhea and Food Poisoning in North America
and
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: E1240 BST,
Department of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, University of
Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15261. Phone: (412)
648-9022. Fax: (412) 624-1401. E-mail: bamcc{at}pitt.edu.
Present address: Department of Microbiology, Oregon State
University, Corvallis, OR 97331.
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