13 Facts About Clostridium botulinum

Clostridium botulinum is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped, anaerobic, spore-forming, motile bacterium with the ability to produce the neurotoxin botulinum.

Clostridium botulinum is commonly associated with bulging canned food; bulging, misshapen cans can be due to an internal increase in pressure caused by gas produced by bacteria.

However, C botulinum tolerates traces of oxygen due to the enzyme superoxide dismutase, which is an important antioxidant defense in nearly all cells exposed to oxygen.

Clostridium botulinum is divided into four distinct phenotypic groups and is classified into seven serotypes based on the antigenicity of the Clostridium botulinum toxin produced.

Group IV C botulinum has not been shown to cause human or animal disease.

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However, these integrations sites are degraded, indicating that the C botulinum acquired the toxin genes quite far in the evolutionary past.

Clostridium botulinum was first recognized and isolated in 1895 by Emile van Ermengem from home-cured ham implicated in a botulism outbreak.

Complete genome of C botulinum has been sequenced at Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in 2007.

The type-E C botulinum was suggested to be a true aquatic organism, which was indicated by the correlation between the level of type-E contamination and flooding of the land with seawater.

Type-A C botulinum has been found in Sydney suburbs and types A and B were isolated from urban areas.

Clostridium botulinum is used to prepare the medicaments Botox, Dysport, Xeomin, and Neurobloc used to selectively paralyze muscles to temporarily relieve muscle function.

Control of food-borne botulism caused by C botulinum is based almost entirely on thermal destruction of the spores or inhibiting spore germination into bacteria and allowing cells to grow and produce toxins in foods.

Growth of C botulinum is a risk in low acid foods as defined by having a pH above 4.