Molecular biology of Clostridium perfringens focusing on epsilon and beta toxin genes

AbstractC. perfringens is an anaerobic gram positive spore forming bacterium that lives in soil, sediments and human and animal digestive tracks. This bacterium produces many toxins that are responsible for its virulence and are used for its classification. Based on the toxin production amount, C. perfringens is divided into five types A, B, C, D and E. 17 protein exotoxin is produced by this bacterium which 4 of them are major (alpha, beta, epsilon and Utah), and others are minor toxins (sigma, theta, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, neuraminidase and enterotoxin). In 1993 C. perfringens chromosome was mapped for the first time. This map revealed details of the chromosome. In the recent years lot of studies in the field of Clostridium molecular biology and its DNA recombination has been done around the world and in Iran. This paper is a review of these studies.