Toxin types of Clostridium perfringens isolated from free-ranging, semidomesticated reindeer in Norway
- A. Aschfalk, DrMedVet1,
- P. Valentin-Weigand, DrMedVet2,
- R. Goethe, DrMedVet2 and
- W. Müller, DrMedVet3
- 1 Department of Arctic Veterinary Medicine, The Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Tromsø, Norway
- 2 Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, School of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover, Germany
- 3 Institute of Animal Hygiene and Environmental Protection,The Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Abstract
Samples of faeces were taken from 166 healthy domesticated reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) from three flocks in different reindeer husbandry districts in northern Norway and examined bacteriologically for the presence of Clostridium perfringens. The organism was isolated from 98 (59 per cent) of the reindeer. The isolates were classified into C perfringens toxin types by PKR analysis specific for the genes encoding the four major toxins (α, β, ϵ and ι) and were subclassified by the detection of the genes encoding C perfringens β2-toxin and enterotoxin. All the isolates belonged to C perfringens toxin type A. In addition, 15 of the 98 isolates were PCR-positive for the β2-toxin gene, and two of the isolates had the the gene encoding for enterotoxin.
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