Clostridium perfringens Associated with Foodborne Infections of Animal Origins: Insights into Prevalence, Antimicrobial Resistance, Toxin Genes Profiles, and Toxinotypes

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Recently, a crisis derived from foodborne infections, especially those are associated with food from animal origins caused by Clostridium perfringens (C. perfringens), has worsened. Unfortunately, the solutions to this crisis were restricted by an evolved resistance to antimicrobial agents. Therefore, we try to warn the world population about the hazards associated with this pathogen. The high diversity and polyclonality of C. perfringens strains depicted in our study show the urgent need to advance programs to control C. perfringens associated with foodborne infections. Additionally, the findings presented in this study are also of clinical importance, assisting in understanding the prevalence, origin, reservoir, and evolution of antimicrobial resistance of C. perfringens for establishing the control of this pathogen. ABSTRACT: Several food-poisoning outbreaks have been attributed to Clostridium perfringens (C. perfringens) worldwide. Despite that, this crisis was discussed in a few studies, and additional studies are urgently needed in this field. Therefore, we sought to highlight the prevalence, antimicrobial resistance, toxin profiles, and toxinotypes of C. perfringens isolates. In this study, 50 C. perfringens isolates obtained from 450 different animal origin samples (beef, chicken meat, and raw milk) were identified by phenotypic and genotypic methods. The antimicrobial susceptibility results were surprising, as most of the isolates (74%) showed multidrug-resistant (MDR) patterns. The phenotypic resistance to tetracycline, lincomycin, enrofloxacin, cefoxitin/ampicillin, and erythromycin was confirmed by the PCR detections of tet, lnu, qnr, bla, and erm(B) genes, respectively. In contrast to the toxinotypes C and E, toxinotype A prevailed (54%) among our isolates. Additionally, we found that the genes for C. perfringens enterotoxin (cpe) and C. perfringens beta2 toxin (cpb2) were distributed among the tested isolates with high prevalence rates (70 and 64%, respectively). Our findings confirmed that the C. perfringens foodborne crisis has been worsened by the evolution of MDR strains, which became the prominent phenotypes. Furthermore, we were not able to obtain a fixed association between the toxinotypes and antimicrobial resistance patterns.