Food poisoning from C. perfringens often occurs when dishes prepared with poultry, meat or fish are cooked and then allowed to cool slowly without proper refrigeration for extended periods. This resulting in the production of enterotoxin that disrupts ion transport in the lower portion of the small intestine.
However, there is considerable variability in the toxin armamentarium of different C. perfringens strains, which provides the basis for a toxinotyping classification system that divides C. perfringens isolates into five types (A–E) depending upon their ability to produce alpha, beta, epsilon, and iota toxin.
C. perfringens enterotoxin (CPE) is a polypeptide with a molecular mass of 35.5 kDa exhibiting three different domains. Domain one is responsible for receptor binding, domain two is involved in hexamer formation and domain three has to do with channel formation in membranes.
Clostridial enterotoxin inhibits glucose transport, damages the intestinal epithelium, and causes protein loss into the intestinal lumen.
C. perfringens type A food poisoning ranks as the second most common foodborne illness in most developed countries. CPE-positive type A strains also cause several non-food-borne human gastrointestinal diseases, including about 5%–10% of all cases of antibiotic-associated diarrhea.
Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin
