Ribotyping of Clostridium perfringens from industrially produced ground meat

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Aims: 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. Methods and 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, Significance and Impact of the Study: The discriminatory index for EcoRI ribotyping of the Cl. perfringens isolates was 0·99. 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.