Background: Clostridium perfringens is an important cause of bacterial food poisoning worldwide. The disease is caused by C. perfringens enterotoxin (CPE) encoded by cpe gene. The aim of this research was to identify the different types of C. perfringens and the presence of cpe gene in isolated bacteria from broiler meats presented in retail meat shops of Mashhad city in northeastern of Iran.
Methods: In this study, 200 samples of fresh chicken carcasses were purchased, randomly from different retail meat shops. In laboratory after rinsing the carcasses and culturing in enrichment and selective media, morphological test was performed from suspected colonies. After DNA extraction from the suspected colonies, for confirming the isolates as C. perfringens, a PCR assay using specific primers for 16s rRNA gene, and for toxin typing a multiplex PCR assay with specific primers, were performed.
Results: C. perfringens was isolated from 31 broiler meat samples (15.5%) and for toxin typing the results showed 9 isolates as type A (29.03%) and 22 isolates as type C (70.96%). In this study, cpe-positive C. perfringens were detected in 8 isolates of type C (25%).
Conclusion: Our results indicate that C. perfringens type C is the most common type in broiler chicken carcasses.