Foodborne Botulism

Introduction

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Clostridium botulinum

Clostridium botulinum is a gram-positive, anaerobic, rod-shaped bacterium that produces the botulinum neurotoxin, which is the cause of foodborne botulism. The bacteria lie dormant as spores until exposed to ideal environmental conditions that enable them to germinate, in which the neurotoxin is then produced. These spores are also very resistant to adverse environmental conditions so eradication of them is difficult. Proliferation of these spores occurs if conditions include for "group I" (discussed below) optimal temperatures between 35-40°C and a pH of 4.6 while "group II" requires the temperature to be between 18-25°C and a pH of 5.0, with both groups requiring anaerobic conditions [1].

Classification

Interaction with Food

**The table's captions**
Column heading 1	Column heading 2	Column heading 3
Row heading 1	Cell 1	Cell 2
Row heading A	Cell A	Cell B

Genome

Table 1: Chromosome and plasmid size and GC content of sequenced Clostridium botulinum Strains

*Note: Data obtained from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez*
Strain	Chromosome Size	Plasmid Size	GC content
Clostridium botulinum strain Hall A	3888Kb	16Kb	28% for chromosome 26% for plasmid
Clostridium botulinum A str. ATCC 19397 (Los Alamos National Laboratory)	3.8 Kb	none	28% for chromosome
Clostridium botulinum A str. ATCC 3502 (Sanger Institute)	3.9Kb	0.016Kb	28 % for chromosome 26% for plasmid
Clostridium botulinum A str. Hall (Los Alamos National Laboratory)	3.7Kb	none	28% for chromosome
Clostridium botulinum A2 str. Kyoto (Los Alamos National Laboratory)	4.15Kb	none	28% for chromosome
Clostridium botulinum A3 str. Loch Maree (Los Alamos National Laboratory)	4Kb	0.27Kb	28% for chromosome 25% for plasmid
Clostridium botulinum B str. Eklund 17B (Los Alamos National Laboratory)	3.8Kb	0.048 Kb	27% for chromosome 24% for plasmid
Clostridium botulinum B1 str. Okra okra (Los Alamos National Laboratory)	3.9Kb	0.15Kb	28% for chormosome 25% for plasmid
Clostridium botulinum Ba4 str. 657 (Los Alamos National Laboratory)	3.9Kb	Plasmid pCLJ- 0.27Kb Plasmid pCLJ2-0.01Kb	28% for chromosome 25% for pCLJ plasmid 24 for pCLJ2 plasmid
Clostridium botulinum E3 str. Alaska E43 (Los Alamos National Laboratory)	3.6Kb	None	27% for chromosome
Clostridium botulinum F str. Langeland (Los Alamos National Laboratory)	4.0Kb	0.018Kb	28% for chromosome 26% for plasmid

Pathology

Virulence Genes & Factors

Mechanism