Résumé
The location of the
cpe
gene, encoding the enterotoxin responsible for food poisoning in humans, has been studied in a series of enterotoxigenic
Ciostridium perfringens
strains by means of pulsed field gel electrophoresis of genomic DNA. The cpe gene was found at the same chromosomal locus in strains associated with food poisoning in humans and was shown to be linked to a repetitive sequence, the
Hin
dlll repeat, and an open reading frame, ORF3, that may be part of an insertion sequence. In contrast, when the strains originated from domesticated livestock
cpe
was located on a large episome where it was often close to a copy of the transposable element IS
1151.
In these cases, the
Hin
dlll repeat was not linked to the
cpe
gene although this was generally preceded by ORF3.