A Wide Variety of Clostridium perfringens Type A Food-Borne Isolates That Carry a ChromosomalcpeGene Belong to One Multilocus Sequence Typing Cluster
ABSTRACTOf 98 suspected food-borneClostridium perfringensisolates obtained from a nationwide survey by the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority in The Netherlands, 59 strains were identified asC. perfringenstype A. Using PCR-based techniques, thecpegene encoding enterotoxin was detected in eight isolates, showing a chromosomal location for seven isolates and a plasmid location for one isolate. Further characterization of these strains by using (GTG)5fingerprint repetitive sequence-based PCR analysis distinguishedC. perfringensfrom other sulfite-reducing clostridia but did not allow for differentiation between various types ofC. perfringensstrains. To characterize theC. perfringensstrains further, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) analysis was performed on eight housekeeping genes of both enterotoxic and non-cpeisolates, and the data were combined with a previous global survey covering strains associated with food poisoning, gas gangrene, and isolates from food or healthy individuals. This revealed that the chromosomalcpestrains (food strains and isolates from food poisoning cases) belong to a distinct cluster that is significantly distant from all the othercpeplasmid-carrying andcpe-negative strains. These results suggest that different groups ofC. perfringenshave undergone niche specialization and that a distinct group of food isolates has specific core genome sequences. Such findings have epidemiological and evolutionary significance. Better understanding of the origin and reservoir of enterotoxicC. perfringensmay allow for improved control of this organism in foods.