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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, August 2002, p. 3744-3749, Vol. 68, No. 8
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.8.3744-3749.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Molecular Epidemiology of Clostridium perfringens Related to Food-Borne Outbreaks of Disease in Finland from 1984 to 1999

Susanna Lukinmaa, Elina Takkunen, and Anja Siitonen^*

Laboratory of Enteric Pathogens, National Public Health Institute, FIN-00300 Helsinki, Finland

Received 5 November 2001/ Accepted 3 May 2002

From 1975 to 1999, Clostridium perfringens caused 238 food-borne disease outbreaks in Finland, which is 20% of all such reported outbreaks during these years. The fact that C. perfringens is commonly found in human and animal stools and that it is also widespread in the environment is a disadvantage when one is searching for the specific cause of a food-borne infection by traditional methods. In order to strengthen the evidence-based diagnostics of food poisonings suspected to be caused by C. perfringens, we retrospectively investigated 47 C. perfringens isolates by PCR for the cpe gene, which encodes enterotoxin; by reversed passive latex agglutination to detect the enterotoxin production; and by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) to compare their genotypes after restriction of DNA by the enzymes SmaI and ApaI. The strains were isolated during 1984 to 1999 from nine food-borne outbreaks of disease originally reported as having been caused by C. perfringens. In seven of the nine outbreaks our results supported the fact that the cause was C. perfringens. Our findings emphasize the importance of a more detailed characterization of C. perfringens isolates than mere identification to the species level in order to verify the cause of an outbreak. Also, to increase the probability of finding the significant cpe-positive C. perfringens strains, it is very important to isolate and investigate more than one colony from the fecal culture of a patient and screen all these isolates for the presence of the cpe gene before further laboratory work is done.

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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: National Public Health Institute, Laboratory of Enteric Pathogens, Mannerheimintie 166, FIN-00300 Helsinki, Finland. Phone: 358-9-47448245. Fax: 358-9-47448238. E-mail: anja.siitonen{at}ktl.fi.

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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, August 2002, p. 3744-3749, Vol. 68, No. 8
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.8.3744-3749.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

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