Automated ribotyping for the identification and characterization of foodborne clostridia

The DuPont Qualicon RiboPrinter was employed to determine if automated ribotyping could be used to differentiate between and characterize various species of foodborne clostridia. EcoRI digests were used to ribotype 49 isolates that represented seven Clostridium species: C. aerotolerans, C. beirjerinckii, C. botulinum, C. butyricum, C. perfringens, C. putrificum, and C. sporogenes. EcoRV digests were also used to ribotype 17 C. botulinum isolates to determine if an alternate restriction enzyme was more suitable than was EcoRI for toxin typing. It was concluded that the RiboPrinter could be potentially used to identify most of the clostridia represented in the study, but that the system has difficulty distinguishing between C. botulinum and C. sporogenes. The system may also be potentially used to characterize clostridia based on phenotypic characteristics. Toxin typing of clostridia remains problematic, but may be improved by the use of restriction enzyme combinations.