Humans as reservoir for enterotoxin gene--carrying Clostridium perfringens type A.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Heikinheimo A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3372343 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description: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 Japanese retail raw meat samples tested were contaminated with low numbers of C. perfringens bacteria and 4% were contaminated with cpe-positive C. perfringens. Most of the cpe-positive C. perfringens isolates obtained from Japanese retail meat carried cpe on a plasmid. The plasmid cpe isolates exhibited lower spore heat resistance than did chromosomal cpe isolates. Collectively, these plasmid cpe isolates might be causative agents of food poisoning when foods are contaminated with these isolates from equipment and/or the environment after cooking, or they may survive in food that has not been cooked at a high enough temperature.
| S-EPMC2546627 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Several Clostridium perfringens genotype E isolates, all associated with hemorrhagic enteritis of neonatal calves, were identified by multiplex PCR. These genotype E isolates were demonstrated to express alpha and iota toxins, but, despite carrying sequences for the gene (cpe) encoding C. perfringens enterotoxin (CPE), were unable to express CPE. These silent cpe sequences were shown to be highly conserved among type E isolates. However, relative to the functional cpe gene of type A isolates, these silent type E cpe sequences were found to contain nine nonsense and two frameshift mutations and to lack the initiation codon, promoters, and ribosome binding site. The type E animal enteritis isolates carrying these silent cpe sequences do not appear to be clonally related, and their silent type E cpe sequences are always located, near the iota toxin genes, on episomal DNA. These findings suggest that the highly conserved, silent cpe sequences present in most or all type E isolates may have resulted from the recent horizontal transfer of an episome, which also carries iota toxin genes, to several different type A C. perfringens isolates.
| S-EPMC108552 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Clostridium perfringens causes one of the most common foodborne illnesses, which is largely mediated by the Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin (CPE). The toxin consists of two functional domains. The N-terminal region mediates the cytotoxic effect through pore formation in the plasma membrane of the mammalian host cell. The C-terminal region (cCPE) binds to the second extracellular loop of a subset of claudins. Claudin-3 and claudin-4 have been shown to be receptors for CPE with very high affinity. The toxin binds with weak affinity to claudin-1 and -2 but contribution of these weak binding claudins to CPE-mediated disease is questionable. cCPE is not cytotoxic, however, it is a potent modulator of tight junctions. This review describes recent progress in the molecular characterization of the cCPE-claudin interaction using mutagenesis, in vitro binding assays and permeation studies. The results promote the development of recombinant cCPE-proteins and CPE-based peptidomimetics to modulate tight junctions for improved drug delivery or to treat tumors overexpressing claudins.
| S-EPMC3153257 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin (CPE), a causative agent of food poisoning, is a pore-forming toxin disrupting the selective permeability of the plasma membrane of target cells, resulting in cell death. We previously identified claudin as the cell surface receptor for CPE. Claudin, a component of tight junctions, is a tetratransmembrane protein and constitutes a large family of more than 20 members, not all of which serve as the receptor for CPE. The mechanism by which the toxin distinguishes the sensitive claudins is unknown. In this study, we localized the region of claudin responsible for interaction with CPE to the C-terminal part of the second extracellular loop and found that the isoelectric point of this region in sensitive claudins was higher than insensitive claudins. Amino acid substitutions to lower the pI resulted in reduced sensitivity to CPE among sensitive claudins, whereas substitutions to raise the pI endowed CPE-insensitive claudins with sensitivity. The steric structure of the claudin-binding domain of CPE reveals an acidic cleft surrounded by Tyr(306), Tyr(310), Tyr(312), and Leu(315), which were reported to be essential for interaction with the sensitive claudins. These results imply that an electrostatic attraction between the basic claudin region and the acidic CPE cleft is involved in their interaction.
| S-EPMC2804187 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Clostridium perfringens type D strains cause enterotoxemia and enteritis in livestock via epsilon toxin production. In type D strain CN3718, CodY was previously shown to increase the level of epsilon toxin production and repress sporulation. C. perfringens type A strains producing C. perfringens enterotoxin (CPE) cause human food poisoning and antibiotic-associated diarrhea. Sporulation is critical for C. perfringens type A food poisoning since spores contribute to transmission and resistance in the harsh food environment and sporulation is essential for CPE production. Therefore, the current study asked whether CodY also regulates sporulation and CPE production in SM101, a derivative of C. perfringens type A food-poisoning strain NCTC8798. An isogenic codY-null mutant of SM101 showed decreased levels of spore formation, along with lower levels of CPE production. A complemented strain recovered wild-type levels of both sporulation and CPE production. When this result was coupled with the earlier results obtained with CN3718, it became apparent that CodY regulation of sporulation varies among different C. perfringens strains. Results from quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR analysis clearly demonstrated that, during sporulation, codY transcript levels remained high in SM101 but rapidly declined in CN3718. In addition, abrB gene expression patterns varied significantly between codY-null mutants of SM101 and CN3718. Compared to the levels in their wild-type parents, the level of abrB gene expression decreased in the CN3718 codY-null mutant strain but significantly increased in the SM101 codY-null mutant strain, demonstrating CodY-dependent regulation differences in abrB expression between these two strains. This difference appears to be important since overexpression of the abrB gene in SM101 reduced the levels of sporulation and enterotoxin production, supporting the involvement of AbrB repression in regulating C. perfringens sporulation.
| S-EPMC5328492 | biostudies-other
Project description:Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin (CPE) is a major virulence factor for human gastrointestinal diseases, such as food poisoning and antibiotic associated diarrhea. The CPE-encoding gene (cpe) can be chromosomal or plasmid-borne. Recent development of conventional PCR cpe-genotyping assays makes it possible to identify cpe location (chromosomal or plasmid) in type A isolates. Initial studies for developing cpe genotyping assays indicated that all cpe-positive strains isolated from sickened patients were typable by cpe-genotypes, but surveys of C. perfringens environmental strains or strains from feces of healthy people suggested that this assay might not be useful for some cpe-carrying type A isolates. In the current study, a pulsed-field gel electrophoresis Southern blot assay showed that four cpe-genotype untypable isolates carried their cpe gene on a plasmid of ∼65 kb. Complete sequence analysis of the ∼65 kb variant cpe-carrying plasmid revealed no intact IS elements and a disrupted cytosine methyltransferase (dcm) gene. More importantly, this plasmid contains a conjugative transfer region, a variant cpe gene and variant iota toxin genes. The toxin genes encoded by this plasmid are expressed based upon the results of RT-PCR assays. The ∼65 kb plasmid is closely related to the pCPF4969 cpe plasmid of type A isolates. MLST analyses indicated these isolates belong to a unique cluster of C. perfringens. Overall, these isolates carrying a variant functional cpe gene and iota toxin genes represent unique type E strains.
| S-EPMC3105049 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Clostridium perfringens is a Gram-positive anaerobic species of bacterium that is notable for its ability to produce a plethora of toxins, including membrane-active toxins (alpha-toxins), pore-forming toxins (-toxins) and binary toxins (iota-toxins). Here, the crystallization of the full-length wild-type C. perfringens enterotoxin is reported, which is the causative agent of the second most prevalent food-borne illness in the United States and has been implicated in many other gastrointestinal pathologies. Several crystal forms were obtained. However, only two of these optimized crystal forms (I and II) were useable for X-ray diffraction data collection. The form I crystals diffracted to d(min) = 2.7 A and belonged to space group C2, while the form II crystals diffracted to d(min) = 4 A and belonged to space group P2(1)3.
| S-EPMC2898463 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The Old World vulture may carry and spread pathogens for emerging infections since they feed on the carcasses of dead animals and participate in the sky burials of humans, some of whom have died from communicable diseases. Therefore, we studied the precise fecal microbiome of the Old World vulture with metataxonomics, integrating the high-throughput sequencing of almost full-length small subunit ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA) gene amplicons in tandem with the operational phylogenetic unit (OPU) analysis strategy. Nine vultures of three species were sampled using rectal swabs on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China. Using the Pacific Biosciences sequencing platform, we obtained 54 135 high-quality reads of 16S rRNA amplicons with an average of 1442±6.9?bp in length and 6015±1058 reads per vulture. Those sequences were classified into 314 OPUs, including 102 known species, 50 yet to be described species and 161 unknown new lineages of uncultured representatives. Forty-five species have been reported to be responsible for human outbreaks or infections, and 23 yet to be described species belong to genera that include pathogenic species. Only six species were common to all vultures. Clostridium perfringens was the most abundant and present in all vultures, accounting for 30.8% of the total reads. Therefore, using the new technology, we found that vultures are an important reservoir for C. perfringens as evidenced by the isolation of 107 strains encoding for virulence genes, representing 45 sequence types. Our study suggests that the soil-related C. perfringens and other pathogens could have a reservoir in vultures and other animals.
| S-EPMC5322324 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Clostridium perfringens causes gas gangrene and gastrointestinal (GI) diseases in humans. The most common cause of C. perfringens-associated food poisoning is the consumption of C. perfringens vegetative cells followed by sporulation and production of enterotoxin in the gut. Despite the importance of spore formation in C. perfringens pathogenesis, the details of the regulation of sporulation have not yet been defined fully. In this study, microarray and bioinformatic analyses identified a candidate gene (the RNA regulator virX) for the repression of genes encoding positive regulators (Spo0A and sigma factors) of C. perfringens sporulation. A virX mutant constructed in the food poisoning strain SM101 had a much higher sporulation efficiency than that of the wild type. The transcription of sigE, sigF, and sigK was strongly induced at 2.5 h of culture of the virX mutant. Moreover, the transcription of the enterotoxin gene was also strongly induced in the virX mutant. Western blotting confirmed that the levels of enterotoxin production were higher in the virX mutant than in the wild type. These observations indicated that the higher levels of sporulation and enterotoxin production in the virX mutant were specifically due to inactivation of the virX gene. Since virX homologues were not found in any Bacillus species but were present in other clostridial species, our findings identify further differences in the regulation of sporulation between Bacillus and certain Clostridium species. The virX RNA regulator plays a key role in the drastic shift in lifestyle of the anaerobic flesh eater C. perfringens between the vegetative state (for gas gangrene) and the sporulating state (for food poisoning).
| S-EPMC3697249 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A complete copy of the gene (cpe) encoding Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin (CPE), an important virulence factor involved in C. perfringens food poisoning and other gastrointestinal illnesses, has been cloned, sequenced, and expressed in Escherichia coli. The cpe gene was shown to encode a 319-amino-acid polypeptide with a deduced molecular weight of 35,317. There was no consensus sequence for a typical signal peptide present in the 5' region of cpe. Cell lysates from recombinant cpe-positive E. coli were shown by quantitative immunoblot analysis to contain moderate amounts of CPE, and this recombinant CPE was equal to native CPE in cytotoxicity for mammalian Vero cells. CPE expression in recombinant E. coli appeared to be largely driven from a clostridial promoter. Immunoblot analysis also demonstrated very low levels of CPE in vegetative cell lysates of enterotoxin-positive C. perfringens. However, when the same C. perfringens strain was induced to sporulate, much stronger CPE expression was detected in these sporulating cells than in either vegetative C. perfringens cells or recombinant E. coli. Collectively, these results strongly suggest that sporulation is not essential for cpe expression, but sporulation does facilitate high-level cpe expression.
| S-EPMC281020 | biostudies-other