Description and identification: Clostridium botulinum is a kind of bacterium that is responsible

McCarthy, A.L., Stevens, S.K., & Weber, R.A. Bacillus Cereus Fact Sheet (2013) Food Safety Counsel. Retrieved from http://www.foodsafetycounsel.com/fo

Clostridium perfringens are bacteria that produce harmful toxins to humans. Clostridium perfringens and its toxins are found everywhere in the environment, including soil, dust and, animals. but human infection is most likely to come from eating food that is contaminated with Clostridium perfringens in it. Food poisoning from Clostridium perfringens is very common, but is typically not too severe, and is often mistaken for the “24-hour flu”.

difficile to treat host from this pathogen. They use C. difficile strains, plasmids and conjugal transfer system to conjugate C. difficile gene. C. difficile strain 630 and VPI 10463was used and they first grew it anaerobically in Brain Heart Infusion media or it can be grown on an OXOID agar with 0.5% yeast extract and 0.1% cysteine, BHIS (2013). They also grew the bacteria in modified HySoy Medium by fermentation of 4-81. They then designed synthetic TcdA and TcdB genes using double allelic substitutions in GT catalytic site residues and used 630 toxin genome sequence for the recombinant genes (Donald, et. al, 2013). After synthesis TcdA and TcdB genes with their full length was subcloned as 8.1 kb and 7.1 kb NdeI-BlII fragments into pMTL84123 vector and E.coli strain Stb12 was the recombinant plasmid used (Donald, et. al, 2013). PCR was done using 5’ and 3’ flanking ends of the sites NotI and NdeI RE. Toxin A and B mutants was further mutated to modify or revert the toxins by site-directed mutagenesis using internal 2.5 kb NdeI-HindIII or 3.3 kb NdeI-EcoNI fragment subclones (Donald, et. al, 2013). Clostridim difficile was then conjugated by conjugal transfer of plasmids from E.coli and centrifugation was done to harvest the bacteria (Donald, et. al, 2013). Transformation that appeared on the media or agar was purified onto a BHIS agar and tested genetically modified toxins (Donald, et. al, 2013).

A new strain of Clostridium botulinum has been discovered that has caused many problems. To begin, this discovery is important as this strain of Clostridium botulinum is responsible for the deadly illness, botulism. As a result, the scientists that discovered this new strain, they decided to keep their findings to themselves and not to to the public. Not to mention that another reason why this new strain of Clostridium botulinum is important is because it is one of the first to be identified in 40 years. Ultimately, the finding of the new strain of Clostridium botulinum is important as it could affect the future effectively.

Clostridum difficile is excess of bacterial growth which releases toxins that attach the lining of the intestines, which causes colitis. It is the bacterium in relationship to the bacteria that causes tetanus and botulism. The bacteria of Clostridum difficile can be found in numerous places, the most common places are in hospitals and health care facilities. The spores of the bacteria are mostly passes through feces and then passed on via food or other contaminated surfaces. There is an active and inactive form. The active can’t survive in the environment of excessive periods of time, while the inactive can live in the environment for excessive periods of time. It is one of the many causes of diarrhea

Clostridium perfringens is an anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium that can be found in soil, feces, and water. There are four major toxins (alpha, beta, epsilon and iota) and five strains of C. perfringens (A-E) that cause a variety of symptoms such as food poisoning, gas gangrene, and severe neurological disease in sheep and other ruminants. The latter will be the primary focus of this research paper.

Botulism is a rare but serious paralytic illness caused by a nerve toxin that is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum and sometimes by strains of Clostridium butyricum and Clostridium baratii (CDC, 2016). Ever since the beginning of time, botulism has been around and food-borne botulism has probably accompanied mankind since its beginning. As long as man has tried to preserve and store food, some of the chosen conditions in the various regions of the world were optimal for the presence and growth of Clostridium botulinum: for example, the storage of ham in barrels of brine in France, poorly dried herring in the Baltic, trout packed to ferment in willow baskets in Scandinavia, sturgeon roe not yet salted and piled in a heap on old

Clostridium botulinum has strains ranging from A through E. Humans can get Type E Botulism if the toxin is ingested by eating an infected fish or animal (NYDEC 2015). Infection by botulism does not occur due to swimming in waters where affected fish or wildlife is found. However, cooking may not destroy the toxin, so it is recommended that ingestion of fish or game that show signs of illness be avoided. Symptoms of illness in birds include inability to hold their head up (drowning,) poor posture (dragging wings while standing,) and inability to fly. Affected fish usually die quickly, may swim erratically near the surface of the water, and are often seen washed up on shore.

Food-borne botulism is the next type. It is a harmful bacterium that thrives in environments with little to no

In this investigation, the objective was to preform various test which were used to help identify an unknown bacterium. The tests done were a combination of selective and deferential media, plus a number of metabolism tests. The result of each test revealed a particular characteristic of the unknown bacterium, and using the combined results observed of these test the unknown bacterium was identified.

Abbreviated to BoNT, there are seven serotypes of botulinum neurotoxin, denoted BoNT-A through to BoNT-G, all of which are released by strains of the Clostridium botulinum; an anaerobic, rod shaped, gram-positive bacterium which is usually prevalent in soils and is capable of forming endospores, (Samul et al., 2013). These endospores can survive high temperatures, (Sobel, 2005), explaining how the major route of infection occurs. The endospores can contaminate food production, surviving the high cooking temperatures, and end up in jarred and tinned food. After germination, the endospore releases its neurotoxins which are consumed and lead to a potentially fatal disease known as botulism. Thanks to food production regulations, these cases are rare in the UK, however there was a case in Scotland in 2011, where three children acquired botulism after eating a jarred sauce, (Browning et al., 2011). Most cases of food-borne botulism are from home made food, where industrial regulations aren’t followed during “canning” or “jarring”, (McLauchlin et al., 2006).

Clostridium perfringens is a thick cell-walled, spore producing bacterium able to thrive without oxygen and the second most common source of foodborne illness in the United States. A few strains of C. perfringens produce toxins such as Alpha toxin, which is known for causing vasoconstriction— the constriction of blood vessels, causing dramatic blood pressure increase— blood clots, and low cardiac output along with Beta 1 toxin causing acute hemorrhagic cell death in avian, and Beta 2 toxin is known to cause stomach flu among cattle, equine, and swine. Even fewer strains produce the far rarer C, D, and E toxins, all sporting similar symptoms. In humans, symptoms of infection from C. perfringens are vomiting, nausea, abdominal cramping, diarrhea,

The Clostridium botulinum bacteria that enters the body stops nerve endings from comunicating with muscles. One of the symptoms of botulism is weakness. So with the nerve damage that Kelly's body was reseving it could have been bad enough that the signals could not reach the diaphragm. The nerve ending send the signals that tell your diaphram to move to help you breath. If those signals are stopped from making contact with the diaphram it just stops working.

Botulism2What is the significance of clostridium botulinum being anaerobic?Botulinum bacteria can live in the absence of oxygen. This means that they can live and grow in number, and produce the botulin toxin in a sealed jar or can. Clostridium botulinum spores are quite widespread throughout the world, inhabiting soil as well as both freshwater and saltwater in mud. Clostridium botulinum organism

Many countries use the fermentation method in order to preserve or enhance the flavors of foods. However, the result of fermentation can also lead to drastic symptoms. For instance, the article “Food-Borne Paralysis from Eating Home-Pickled Eggs” from an Outbreak 37 article is about a 68-year-old man having symptoms involving paralysis and muscle weakness after eating the home-pickled eggs that he had made. This is one example of what we call Clostridium Botulinum. Clostridium Botulinum is a rod-shaped bacterium with a terminal endospore. This pathogen grows best around room temperature to warm areas and loves the environment that has soil. They are also gram-positive bacteria. There are three types of Clostridium Botulism: foodborne, infant botulism, and wound. These different types of botulism have different symptoms, causes, preventions, and treatments. C. Botulinum has spores that releases toxins and can germinate and affect other organisms. This neurotoxin is highly toxic which can make a person have paralysis. Originally, there are more than four different types of botulism, but those other types of botulism do not affect human’s health.