Ribotyping of Clostridium perfringens from industrially produced ground meat.
OBJECTIVE
Clostridium (Cl.) perfringens is a common cause of food poisoning outbreaks. Ribosomal DNA analysis (ribotyping), a method which analyses restriction fragment length polymorphisms in the chromosomal genes that encode rRNA, has been shown to be useful for microbial species identification and subtyping.


RESULTS
The current study has used ribotyping to examine 111 Cl. perfringens isolates from industrially produced ground meat in order to collect a basis for a contamination survey. Among the 111 isolates 107 distinctly different ribopatterns were detected. In only four cases two Cl. perfringens isolates showed an identical ribopattern. The isolates gave identical ribotype patterns in three different runs, carried out 3-4 months apart from each other.


CONCLUSIONS
The discriminatory index for EcoRI ribotyping of the Cl. perfringens isolates was 0 x 99. Results showed that ribotyping is suitable for subtyping Cl. perfringens isolates from raw meat. Ribotyping appeared to be a useful tool for profound epidemiologic studies of Cl. perfringens-contamination in food production and processing.
Kilic
U
U
Institute for Hygiene and Technology of Food of Animal Origin, Veterinary Faculty, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Veterinärstr 13, D-80539 Munich, Germany.
Schalch
B
B
Stolle
A
A
D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D003016:Clostridium perfringens / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004591:Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel; D019649:Food Industry; D005516:Food Microbiology; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D006801:Humans; D008461:Meat Products / Q000382:microbiology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D021521:Ribotyping / Q000379:methods