E. Cornillot et al., THE ENTEROTOXIN GENE (CPE) OF CLOSTRIDIUM-PERFRINGENS CAN BE CHROMOSOMAL OR PLASMID-BORNE, Molecular microbiology, 15(4), 1995, pp. 639-647
The location of the ope gene, encoding the enterotoxin responsible for
food poisoning in humans, has been studied in a series of enterotoxig
enic Clostridium perfringens strains by means of pulsed field gel elec
trophoresis of genomic DNA. The cpe gene was found at the same chromos
omal locus in strains associated with food poisoning in humans and was
shown to be linked to a repetitive sequence, the HindIII repeat, and
an open reading frame, ORF3, that may be part of an insertion sequence
. In contrast, when the strains originated from domesticated livestock
ope was located on a large episome where it was often close to a copy
of the transposable element IS1151. In these cases, the HindIII repea
t was not linked to the ope gene although this was generally preceded
by ORF3.