The presence of toxin genes of Clostridium perfringens isolated from camels and humans in Egypt

Clostridium perfringens is a saprozoonotic bacterium which causes food poisoning and wound infections in humans and enterotoxemia in animals. Camels are a common food animal in Egypt. There is a lack of available literature on genotypes of C. petfringens strains recovered from camels and humans in Egypt. So, the present study aims to detect some toxins genes in the circulating C. perfringens strains in man and camels. The multiplex PCR assay is effective and simpler and may be a useful alternative to standard in vivo typing methods. A total of 210 samples including 150 from camels (75 stool and 75 carcass swabs) and 60 human stools (40 diarrheic and 20 non- diarrheic) were collected from Zagazig Abattoir and Zagazig General Hospital, respectively. The samples were examined for isolation of C. perfringens then toxins genes were detected by multiplex PCR assay, using six pair primers to amplify the target genes. C. perfringens was isolated from camel stools, meat swabs, diarrheic and non-diarrheic human stool samples at the rate of 20/75 (26.7\%), 2/75 (2.7\%), 15/40(37.5\%) and 3/20(15\%), respectively. Multiplex PCR assay was performed to detect some toxin genes: alpha (cpa), beta (cpb), iota (iap), epsilon (etx) enterotoxin (cpe) and beta 2 (cpb2) in the isolates (No=40). The obtained results revealed that C. perfringens types A, B, C, D and E in the present study were detected at the rate of 26/40(65.0\%), 4/40(10.0\%), 1/40(2.5\%), 1/40(2.5\%) and 0/40(0\%). respectively. Eight C. perfringens isolates were negative to the toxin genes indicating that they are non-toxigenic. Two human enteritis strains of C. perfringens type A were positive to cpe and another two strains were cpb2 positive. The present study indicates that C. perfringens harboring toxin genes are prevalent in camels and humans in Egypt. The most common circulating C. perfringens strains in camels and humans were C. perfringens type A. Further research is needed to study the molecular relationship between C. perfringens from camels and human strains to trace the source of infection.