Clostridium perfringens is a ubiquitous, Gram-positive, spore-forming bacterium. It can contaminate many types of retail meat products and cause food poisoning by producing enterotoxins in the small intestines of humans and domestic animals. We investigated the prevalence, toxin-encoding gene profile, and antimicrobial resistance of C. perfringens in beef, chicken, and pork meat purchased from retail markets in Seoul, Korea. C. perfringens was detected according to the International Organization for Standardization 7937, with some modifications, and confirmed using the Vitek 2 system. In total, 38 C. perfringens strains were isolated from 200 meat samples (38/200, 19%; thirty-three from chicken, and five from beef). Among the six toxins evaluated, including alpha, beta, epsilon, iota, enterotoxin (encoded in the cpe gene), and netB, only the cpa gene was detected in all isolates by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification. The antimicrobial resistance of the isolates was evaluated using the agar dilution method and resistance to ampicillin (12/38, 31.6%), tetracycline (38/38, 100%), chloramphenicol (26/38, 68.4%), metronidazole (13/38, 34.2%), and imipenem (27/38, 71%) was observed. Interestingly, 30 of the 38 isolates (78.9%) were multiple-drug resistant, showing resistance to more than three different antimicrobial classes.

产气荚膜梭状芽胞杆菌是一种普遍存在的革兰氏阳性孢子形成细菌。它会在人类和家畜的小肠中产生肠毒素，从而污染许多类型的零售肉类产品并引起食物中毒。我们调查了从韩国首尔零售市场购买的牛肉，鸡肉和猪肉中产气荚膜梭菌的患病率，编码毒素的基因概况以及抗药性。根据国际标准化组织7937（经过一些修改）检测了产气荚膜梭菌，并使用Vitek 2系统进行了确认。总共38个产气荚膜梭菌从200份肉样品中分离出菌株（38/200，占19％； 33份来自鸡肉，五份来自牛肉）。在评估的六种毒素中，包括α，β，ε，iota，肠毒素（cpe基因中编码）和netB，通过聚合酶链反应（PCR）扩增在所有分离物中仅检测到cpa基因。使用琼脂稀释法评估了分离物的抗药性，并对氨苄西林（12/38，31.6％），四环素（38/38，100％），氯霉素（26/38，68.4％），甲硝唑（13 / 38，34.2％）和亚胺培南（27/38，71％）。有趣的是，在38个分离物中，有30个（78.9％）具有多重耐药性，显示出对三种以上不同抗菌药物的耐药性。