Clostridium Perfringens Essay

Botulism is a rare but very serious paralytic illness that is caused by botulinum toxin(potentially deadly neurotoxin) which is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. The botulinum toxin can enter the body in 3 main ways: by the ingestion of the toxin from eating foods that contain the botulism toxin (food borne botulism), by the contamination of a wound by the bacterium in which the toxin is produced (wound botulism) and Infant botulism which is caused by consuming the spores of the botulinum bacteria, which then grow in the intestines and release the toxin. The powerful exotoxin (botulinum toxin) leads to secretory diarrhea. All forms of botulism can be fatal and are therefore considered to be

Esherichia coli also known as E. coli is a bacterium that lives in your gut. (1). it was founded by Theodore von Esherich in 1888. There are many people that can get the bacteria. Also there are thousands of strands of E.coli. Six E. coli O157 outbreaks were identified during 2007. Four of the outbreaks involved foodborne transmission. (Eshericha Coli). Six Minnesota cases and one Wisconsin case with the same or closely-related PFGE subtype of E. coli O157:H7, and an additional Minnesota case of Shiga-toxin producing E. coli that was not culture-confirmed, attended the Minnesota State Fair in August. All but one of the cases showed cattle or visited the cattle

Clostridium difficile is a gram positive, spore forming anaerobic bacillus, which may or may not carry the genes for toxin A-B production (Nipa, 2010). These two types of protein exotoxins produced by the Clostridium difficile bacillus, toxin A and toxin B, can have an infectious form and a non-active, non-infectious form (Grossman, 2010). The infectious form can survive for a short duration of time in the environment. The spores can survive for a longer period of time in the environment and are not infectious unless and until they are ingested or are transformed into an infectious state (Nipa, 2010).

Some species have been isolated in the stomach, gallbladder, intestine, vagina, and skin of healthy persons. The bacteria produce toxins that dissolve cell membranes, causing death of muscle cells, massive spreading edema, hemolysis of red blood cells, hemolytic anemia, hemoglobinuria, and renal failure. Characteristic of this disorder are the bubbles of hydrogen sulfide gas that form in the muscle. Gas gangrene is a serious and potentially fatal disease. Antibiotics are used to treat the infection and surgical methods are used to remove the infected tissue. Amputation may be required to prevent spreading (Porth & Gaspard,

Many Americans die each year from complications connected to Clostridium difficile. It can ill a significant number of individuals as well as animals. The Clostridium difficile infection is the result of poor hygiene, misuse, overuse of antibiotics and an aging population. In this paper I will be discussing the following topics, what clostridium difficile means, what it causes, signs and symptoms, complications, treatment and the prevention.

761). Since the nutrients in the intestines are available due to the good bacteria being destroyed, Clostridium difficile uses the nutrients to multiply and releases the toxins , which attack the lining of the intestines, thus causing colitis (Fordtran, 2006, pp. 3).

Clostridium difficile was discovered and isolated from neonates in 1935. It was initially considered a component of the fecal flora of newborns and not thought to be pathogenic (Keessen, Gaastra, & Lipman, 2010). The history of C. diff and other antibiotic resistant pathogens are closely related with the history of antibiotics. The first antibiotic discovered was penicillin by Alexander Fleming while working with Staphylococcus. With this discovery, a surge of natural and synthetic drugs was discovered to treat bacterial infections. During the 1970s, clindamycin and cephalosporins were highly used as an effective antibiotic against bacterial infection but at the same time disrupted the normal, healthy bowel flora, allowing C.

difficile lies within the 19.6 kb pathogenicity locus (PaLoc) and codes for two major virulence factors and three accessory proteins [9]. Genes tcdA and tcdB encode Toxin A and Toxin B, respectively, the two major virulence factors which are part of the clostridial glucosylating toxin family [10]. Both catalyze the inactivation of Rho-GTPases, which are essential for the regulation of eukaryotic cell cytoskeleton [9]. The inactivation of Rho-GTPases causes cell death via cytoskeletal disorganization [9]. The accessory gene functions are as follows; tcdE as a putative holin protein; tcdD as a positive regulator and tcdC as a negative regulator, both of which are controlling Toxin A and B gene expression

Many different diseases are caused by different species in the Clostridium genus, including tetanus, botulism, and gangrene ("Clostridium."). But perhaps the worst, but least publicly recognized, is Clostridium difficile, or CDI. This disease affects 500,000 people every year in the US alone, and of those infected, around 6% died within the first month of being infected (“Healthcare-Associated Infections.”). CDI is a gastrointestinal infection. It is found in soil, water, processed meat, and human and animal feces, but once the bacteria has reached a surface, it can linger there for months. If people touch a surface with CDI with their hands, they can then accidentally ingest it, leading to a potential CDI infection. Certain people are at much

Clostridium difficile has infected up to 500,000 people in the United States every year. Clostridium difficile is a bacterial infection it can cause diarrhea and also a fever. It has also caused death among people. There has been a recorded 14,000 deaths from Clostridium difficile a year.

Chapter 9 of the literature shows the spread of bacteria called E. Coli 0157:H7 as well as its negative effects. E. Coli 0157:H7 was found in the beef and 25 million pounds had already been eaten. The food poisoning was spreading rapidly and 200,000 people got sick. Schlosser claimed that since there is bad in the meat that is why people are getting an ill eating hamburger. Americans were getting afraid and constantly people were getting infected, especially children, elderly, and people with impaired immune systems. According to the literature,“...progressed to diarrhea that filled a hospital toilet with blood… drilling holes in his skull to relieve pressure, inserting tubes in his chest to keep him breathing, as Shia toxins destroyed his

Clostridim difficile was first isolated in1935 by George and his colleagues from a stool found in a healthy infant by the name of Hall and O’Toole (Heinlen and Ballard, 2010). Yet in 1978, C.difficile was known to be associated as disease in human’s antibiotic-associated diarrhea (Heinlen and Ballard, 2010). It is 2 types of C. difficile: one that exists in spore form and the other in vegetative form. Depending on the type of form it exist in, allows it to grow in a certain environment. It is also a gram positive rod bacterium. When Clostridim difficile exist in a spore form, it can live in harsh conditions and in common sterilization techniques (Heinlen and Ballard, 2010). When C. difficile exist in spore form, it will be resistant to temperature

Streptococcus pneumoniae is found worldwide. The common host is the human body, in which it often does not cause disease but at other times it can cause diseses in particular, pneumonia. It also causes otitis media, bacteremia, meningitis, peritonitis, and sinusitis. The route by which this organism is spread is from human to human in the form of aerosol droplets. When inside the host the organism’s primary site of pneumococcal colonization is the nasopharynx. From this site it can aspire to the lungs, eventually spread to the blood and traverse the blood-brain barrier to the meninges, once inside the blood it can cause infections throughout the body. Symptoms of the disease include sudden

Virulence Factors: The most important virulence factor of S. aureus is the specific surface proteins that allow the organism to attach to host proteins. The surface proteins of this bacterium allow it to attach to host proteins such as laminin and fibronectin, which form the extracellular matrix of epithelial and endothelial cells. S. aureus also produces a number of membrane damaging toxins that allow the organism to further invade and harm the host, of which the alpha- toxin is the most well studied and is the protein responsible for septic shock. The alpha- toxin is a protein that binds to a specific receptor in platelets and monocytes in humans, forming pores that eventually destroy the cell.

Common illnesses that can occur are salmonella and trichinosis poisoning resulting from improper handling of chicken, eggs or pork (Jardin, 2009, para.2). Diseases such as: campylobacteriosis, cholera, and listeriosis also make the list of illnesses (Jardin, 2009, para.1). These diseases are the versions of food poisoning, which can be life-threatening. According to the World of Health article published in 2007,