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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, January 1998, p. 30-36, Vol. 36, No. 1
0095-1137/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Evidence That the Enterotoxin Gene Can Be Episomal in Clostridium perfringens Isolates Associated with Non-Food-Borne Human Gastrointestinal Diseases

Renee E. Collie and Bruce A. McClane*

Department of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261

Received 5 May 1997/Returned for modification 1 August 1997/Accepted 1 October 1997

Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin (CPE) is responsible for the diarrheal and cramping symptoms of human C. perfringens type A food poisoning. CPE-producing C. perfringens isolates have also recently been associated with several non-food-borne human gastrointestinal (GI) illnesses, including antibiotic-associated diarrhea and sporadic diarrhea. The current study has used restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analyses to compare the genotypes of 43 cpe-positive C. perfringens isolates obtained from diverse sources. All North American and European food-poisoning isolates examined in this study were found to carry a chromosomal cpe, while all non-food-borne human GI disease isolates characterized in this study were determined to carry their cpe on an episome. Collectively, these results provide the first evidence that distinct subpopulations of cpe-positive C. perfringens isolates may be responsible for C. perfringens type A food poisoning versus CPE-associated non-food-borne human GI diseases. If these putative associations are confirmed in additional surveys, cpe RFLP and PFGE genotyping assays may facilitate the differential diagnosis of food-borne versus non-food-borne CPE-associated human GI illnesses and may also be useful epidemiologic tools for identifying reservoirs or transmission mechanisms for the subpopulations of cpe-positive isolates specifically responsible for CPE-associated food-borne versus non-food-borne human GI diseases.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: E1240 Biomedical Science Tower, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261. Phone: (412) 648-9022. Fax: (412) 624-1401. E-mail: bamcc{at}pop.pitt.edu.

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, January 1998, p. 30-36, Vol. 36, No. 1
0095-1137/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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