Distribution of Clostridium perfringens isolates from piglets in South Korea

Clostridium perfringens causes various digestive system disease symptoms in pigs. In the present study, 11 C. perfringens isolates were obtained from diarrheic piglets and 18 from healthy piglets. All of the C. perfringens isolates were shown to be type A using a multiplex PCR assay. The β2 toxin gene was detected in 27/29 C. perfringens isolates, i.e., 81% (9/11) of diarrheic piglets and 100% (18/18) of healthy piglets, and all of the genes had the same sequence. In conclusion, the β2 toxin gene of C. perfringens was distributed widely in Korean piglets regardless of the incidence of diarrhea, and there was no clear relationship with enteric disease. A pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis of DNA digested using SmaI demonstrated the non-clonal spread of C. perfringens isolates from piglets.