Molecular methods for the analysis of Clostridium perfringens relevant to food hygiene

Clostridium perfringens continues to be a common cause of food-borne diseas e [1,2]. It produces an enterotoxin (CPE) which is released upon lysis of t he vegetative cell during sporulation in the intestinal tract. Catering pre mises with insufficient cooling and reheating devices often seem to be the cause of outbreaks of C. perfringens food poisoning. Typing of C. perfringe ns is of great importance for investigating sources of food poisoning cases and for studying the epidemiology of this microorganism. This report descr ibes the examination of 155 C. perfringens isolates by molecular methods. I solates were taken from 10 food poisoning outbreaks and cases (n = 34, food and fecal isolates) and from meat and fish pastes (n = 121). Isolates were characterized by plasmid profiling, ribotyping, and/or macrorestriction an alysis by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Results show that all th ree methods are suitable for classifying C. perfringens isolates below the species level. Ribopatterns and PFGE patterns can be interpreted more easil y than plasmid profiling results and can be recommended for contamination s tudies and epidemiologic investigation of food poisonings associated with C . perfringens. (C) 1999 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. P ublished by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.