Prevalence and characterization of enterotoxin gene-carrying Clostridium perfringens isolates from retail meat products in Japan.

ABSTRACT: Clostridium perfringens is an important anaerobic pathogen causing food-borne gastrointestinal (GI) diseases in humans and animals. It is thought that C. perfringens food poisoning isolates typically carry the enterotoxin gene (cpe) on their chromosome, while isolates from other GI diseases, such as antibiotic-associated diarrhea, carry cpe on a transferable plasmid. However, food-borne GI disease outbreaks associated with C. perfringens isolates carrying plasmid-borne cpe (plasmid cpe isolates) were recently reported in Japan and Europe. To investigate whether retail food can be a reservoir for food poisoning generally, we evaluated Japanese retail meat products for the presence of two genotypes of enterotoxigenic C. perfringens. Our results demonstrated that approximately 70% of the Japa

SUBMITTER: Miki Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2546627 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature