Authors: Francesco Candeliere, Eliana Musmeci, Laura Sola...

Mucins are large glycoproteins whose degradation requires the expression of several glycosil hydrolases to catalyze the cleavage of the oligosaccharide chains and release monosaccharides that can be assimilated. In this study, we present a characterization on the strains WC0700, WC0709, and WC0705. These three strains were previously isolated from enrichment cultures on mucin of fecal samples from healthy subjects and can use mucin as sole carbon and nitrogen source. Genome analysis and functional analysis of these strains elucidated their physiological and biochemical features. WC0700 harbored the highest number of glycosyl hydrolases specific for mucin degradation, while WC0705 had the least. These predicted differences were confirmed growing the strains on 5 mucin-decorating monosaccharides (L-fucose, N-Acetylneuraminic acid, galactose, N-acetylgalactosamine, and N-acetylglucosamine) as only source of carbon. Fermenting mucin, they all produced formic, acetic, propionic, butyric, isovaleric, and lactic acids, and ethanol; acetic acid was the main primary metabolite. Further catabolic capabilities were investigated, as well as antibiotic susceptibility, biofilm formation, tolerance to oxygen and temperature. The potential pathogenicity of the strains was evaluated through research of virulence factors. The merge between comparative and functional genomics and biochemical/physiological characterization provided a comprehensive view of these mucin degraders, reassuring on the safety of these species and leaving ample scope for deeper investigations on the relationship with the host and for assessing if some relevant health-promoting effect could be ascribed to these SCFA producing species.

PubMed: 38511005
DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1359726

Authors: Andrew Hale, James E Kirby, Mary Albrecht...

Clostridium bifermentans is a rare pathogen in humans. A fatal case of fulminant endometritis with toxic shock and capillary leak secondary to C bifermentans infection in a young woman is described, and this is compared to all 13 previously described cases of C bifermentans infection.

PubMed: 27419167
DOI: 10.1093/ofid/ofw095

Authors: S NISIDA, K TAMAI, T YAMAGISHI...

Nishida, S. (Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan), K. Tamai, and T. Yamagishi. Taxonomy of Clostridium bifermentans and Clostridium sordellii. I. Their toxigenicity, urease activity, and sporulating potency. J. Bacteriol. 88:1641-1646. 1964.-Strains with properties similar to those of Clostridium bifermentans were usually obtained by selecting heat-resistant substrains of C. sordellii 1734. Heat-resistant substrains obtained from seven other strains were also found to be nontoxic. Some of these heat-resistant substrains produced urease, but others did not. Substrains of typical cultures of C. sordellii thus can yield either substrains resembling nonpathogenic strains of C. sordellii culturally, or substrains resembling C. bifermentans. The sporulating potency of pathogenic and nonpathogenic strains of C. sordellii and strains of C. bifermentans proved to be significantly distinct. The sporulating potency of C. bifermentans was high, that of pathogenic strains of C. sordellii was low, and that of nonpathogenic strains of C. sordellii was intermediate between the other two.

Topics: Antitoxins; Classification; Clostridium; Clostridium bifermentans; Clostridium sordellii; Hot Temperature; Japan; Metabolism; Research; Spores; Spores, Bacterial; Toxins, Biological; Urease

PubMed: 14240951
DOI: 10.1128/JB.88.6.1641-1646.1964

Authors: C T HUANG, K TAMAI, S NISHIDA...

Huang, C. T. (Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan), Kenzo Tamai, and Shoki Nishida. Taxonomy of Clostridium bifermentans and Clostridium sordellii, III. Agglutinability of heat-resistant substrains of Clostridium sordellii. J. Bacteriol. 90:391-394. 1965.-By cross-agglutination tests with Clostridium bifermentans and C. sordellii antisera, the heat-resistant substrains from each pathogenic strain of C. sordellii were found to possess antigens of C. bifermentans in addition to displaying changes in biological activities. The agglutinability and biological activities varied with the sporulating potency acquired. Agglutinin-absorption tests further proved that heat-resistant substrains of C. sordellii were immunologically identical to C. bifermentans.

Topics: Agglutination; Agglutinins; Allergy and Immunology; Antigen-Antibody Reactions; Antigens; Classification; Clostridium; Clostridium bifermentans; Clostridium sordellii; Gelatin; Hot Temperature; Immune Sera; Indoles; Japan; Mannose; Metabolism; Research; Species Specificity; Spores; Spores, Bacterial; Urease

PubMed: 14330732
DOI: 10.1128/jb.90.2.391-394.1965

Authors: P D ELLNER, S S GREEN

Topics: Classification; Clostridium; Clostridium bifermentans; Clostridium sordellii; Research

PubMed: 14066447
DOI: 10.1128/jb.86.3.605-605.1963

Authors: Wei Yang, Huifen Liang, Ruhan Chen...

Pacific white shrimp () is one of the most productive and economically important species globally. However, the development and continuous expansion of the farming scale led to an increase in the risk of disease occurrence in shrimp farming. The application of probiotics as an effective method for controlling diseases in aquaculture has been widely considered. In shrimp farming, several probiotics have been used and shown benefits to the health of the host. To diverse the sources of bacterial species as probiotics in shrimp farming, in this study, we aimed to elucidate the effects of dietary probiotics ( I9 (I9), G15 (G15), or X13) on the growth, immune response and intestinal microbiome of white shrimp. Shrimps were fed with diets containing either phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), I9 (10 CFU/g feed), G15 (10 CFU/g feed), or X13 (10 CFU/g feed) for 30 days and followed by the challenge with (). The results showed that the survival rate, body weight gain, and special growth rate of shrimps in the I9, X13, and G15 groups significantly increased, compared to the PBS. The supplementation of probiotics increased the content of short-chain fatty acids and effectively maintained the normal morphology and structure of the intestinal tract and hepatopancreas. The I9, X13, or G15 groups showed a positive change in the diversity and abundance of gut bacteria. There was a significant up-regulation of CTL, SOD, proPO, Crustin, PEN2-4, and ALF1-3 genes in shrimps in the I9, X13, and G15. Additionally, dietary probiotics significantly increased the survival rate, maintained the intestinal structure, promoted the activities of SOD, AKP, ACP, and T-AOC enzymes, and reduced the level of MDA in shrimps after infection. In conclusion, dietary supplementation of I9, G15, or X13 improved the growth, immunity, and disease resistance of Pacific white shrimp, providing a scientific basis for shrimp farming.

PubMed: 39664054
DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1479446

Clostridium sordellii phospholipase C: gene cloning and comparison of enzymatic and biological activities with those of Clostridium perfringens and Clostridium bifermentans phospholipase C.

Authors: Tadahiro Karasawa, Xingmin Wang, Tsuneo Maegawa...

The gene encoding Clostridium sordellii phospholipase C (Csp) was cloned and expressed as a histidine-tagged (His-tag) protein, and the protein was purified to compare its enzymatic and biological activities with those of Clostridium perfringens phospholipase C (Cpa) and Clostridium bifermentans phospholipase C (Cbp). Csp was found to consist of 371 amino acid residues in the mature form and to be more homologous to Cbp than to Cpa. The egg yolk phospholipid hydrolysis activity of the His-tag Csp was about one-third of that of His-tag Cpa, but the hemolytic activity was less than 1% of that of His-tag Cpa. His-tag Csp was nontoxic to mice. Immunization of mice with His-tag Cbp or His-tag Csp did not provide effective protection against the lethal activity of His-tag Cpa. These results indicate that Csp possesses similar molecular properties to Cbp and suggest that comparative analysis of toxic and nontoxic clostridial phospholipases is helpful for characterization of the toxic properties of clostridial phospholipases.

Topics: Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; Antibodies, Bacterial; Bacterial Vaccines; Cloning, Molecular; Clostridium; Clostridium Infections; Clostridium perfringens; Immunization; Male; Mice; Molecular Sequence Data; Sequence Alignment; Type C Phospholipases

PubMed: 12540540
DOI: 10.1128/IAI.71.2.641-646.2003

Authors: J F Charles, L Nicolas, M Sebald...

Sporulation of Clostridium bifermentans serovar malaysia, which has a larvicidal activity towards mosquitoes, was examined by electron microscopy. Parasporal inclusion bodies lacking a crystalline structure were first detected at t5 (5 h after the end of exponentional growth). Also, the presence of "brush-bottle"-like appendages appearing first at t5 was noted; these remained attached to the spores when released after sporangium lysis. Larvicidal activity assayed on Anopheles stephensi larvae appeared at t0 and increased rapidly to a maximum between t5 and t8. However, a decrease in bacterial toxicity occurred with sporangium lysis.

Topics: Animals; Cell Division; Clostridium; Culicidae; In Vitro Techniques; Microscopy, Electron; Spores, Bacterial

PubMed: 1980958
DOI: 10.1016/0923-2508(90)90066-y

Authors: K TAMAI, S NISHIDA

Tamai, Kenzo (Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan), and Shoki Nishida. Taxonomy of Clostridium bifermentans and Clostridium sordellii. II. Toxigenic and sporulating potencies in substrains of a Clostridium sordellii strain. J. Bacteriol. 88:1647-1651. 1964.-The existence of six biological criteria for distinction of Clostridium bifermentans and C. sordellii was confirmed. The difference in the six criteria gradually disappeared as the sporulating potency of the substrains of C. sordellii 4708 was strengthened. The substrains which could resist heating at 90 C for 10, 20, or 30 min were found to have lost all six criteria for distinction and were biologically in agreement with C. bifermentans. We further demonstrated that all newly isolated strains of C. bifermentans examined possessed extremely strong sporulating potency.

Topics: Antitoxins; Classification; Clostridium; Clostridium bifermentans; Clostridium sordellii; Fermentation; Flavonoids; Gelatin; Glycosides; Hot Temperature; Indoles; Japan; Mannose; Metabolism; Peptide Hydrolases; Research; Sorbitol; Spores; Spores, Bacterial; Toxins, Biological; Urease

PubMed: 14240952
DOI: 10.1128/jb.88.6.1647-1651.1964

Authors: Xunchao Cai, Yao Peng, Gongli Yang...

(P.b) is an emerging human pathogen that is phylogenomically close to (P.s), while their populational genomic features and virulence capacity remain understudied. Here, we performed comparative genomic analyses of P.b and compared their pan-genomic features and virulence coding profiles to those of P.s. Our results revealed that P.b has a more plastic pangenome, a larger genome size, and a higher GC content than P.s. Interestingly, the P.b and P.s share similar core-genomic functions, but P.b encodes more functions in nutrient metabolism and energy conversion and fewer functions in host defense in their accessory-genomes. The P.b may initiate extracellular infection processes similar to those of P.s and by encoding three toxin homologs (i.e., microbial collagenase, thiol-activated cytolysin, phospholipase C, which are involved in extracellular matrices degradation and membrane damaging) in their core-genomes. However, P.b is less toxic than the P.s by encoding fewer secretion toxins in the core-genome and fewer lethal toxins in the accessory-genome. Notably, P.b carries more toxins genes in their accessory-genomes, particularly those of plasmid origin. Moreover, three within-species and highly conserved plasmid groups, encoding virulence, gene acquisition, and adaptation, were carried by 25-33% of P.b strains and clustered by isolation source rather than geography. This study characterized the pan-genomic virulence features of P.b for the first time, and revealed that is an emerging pathogen that can threaten human health in many aspects, emphasizing the importance of phenotypic and genomic characterizations of clinical isolates.

PubMed: 38029151
DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1293206