Food borne infection with Clostridium perfringens type A

Clostridium perfringens type A is one of the four most important bacterial agents causing food poisoning. Differential biochemical characterization appears to be important because of certain confounding species. Both the heat sensitive and resistant spore forming strains cause food poisoning. Ubiquitous nature, ability to contaminate carcass intravitally, thermal resistance of spores, relatively short generation time at high incubation temperature, survival in chilled and frozen meat and ability to overcome stomach acid barrier makes Cl. perfringens type A a common agent of food borne infection. Enteropathy is mediated through enterotoxin synthesised in vivo during sporulation. The enterotoxin is relatively insensitive to intestinal enzymes and is cytotoxic. The membrane bound transport enzyme, Na+K+-ATPase seems to be affected resulting into fluid accumulation in the ligated ileal loop of rabbit. Agglutination test using vegetative cell antigen is the commonly used epidemiological tool. New tools such as agglutination test with antispore serum, precipitin-in-gel test with anti-enterotoxin serum, active and passive bacteriocin, bacteriophage and biotyping have been developed using standard strains and isolates of c. perfringens type A from foods, food poisoning and others. Except for bacteriophage typing, others appears to be useful alone or in combination, though these require to be tested in field investigations.