Ribotyping of Clostridium perfringens isolated from raw meat

111 Clostridium (C.) perfringens isolates fom minced meat were ribotyped an d then examined visually. 107 distinctly different ribopatterns were detect ed. In only four cases two C. perfringens isolates showed an identical ribo pattern. The discriminatory index for ribotyping of the C. perfringens isolates stud ied lay above 0.99. This indicates that ribotyping is very well suited to s ubtype C. perfringens isolates from raw meat. Manual ribotyping is time and cost consuming and requires profoundly traine d personnel for carrying out the tests and for evaluating the results. Neve rtheless, this study underlines the discriminatory power and reproducibilit y of ribotyping of C. perfringens isolates from minced meat. In addition, a ll isolates were typeable using this method. Therefore, ribotyping is suita ble for establishing a data bank as a basis for comprehensive contamination studies.