The danger of Clostridium botulinum bacteria

C. botulinum is capable of producing extremely toxic botulism toxins under conditions of 30-37 ^o C. Botulism is a neurotoxin, which can cause paralysis of nerve muscles and cause death for humans and many animals.

Clostridium botulinum (C. botulinum) was first described by E.van Ermengem in 1897 during a food poisoning in Ellezelles, Belgium. C. botulinum is mandatory anaerobic bacteria , spore-forming and mobile. When carrying out Gram stain, Gram-positive color-catching bacteria, with straight or slightly curved shape, size 0.5-2 µm in width, 1.6-22 µm in length. When faced with unfavorable living conditions spores of C. botulinum turn into 'rest' form and may exist in this form for about 30 years or more. When meeting favorable conditions, they develop normally and are able to produce many types of toxins but most importantly neurotoxins (neurotoxin).

C. botulinum is distributed throughout the soil.

There are 7 types of neurotoxins and are denoted from A to G, in which toxins of type A, B, E, F cause disease in humans, and toxins of type C and D only cause disease in animals. Type G toxin, although detected since 1970, has not been determined to cause human or animal disease. In toxins, toxin A is considered to be unique. It is 7 times more toxic than tetanus toxin, lethal in very small amounts.

C. botulinum is distributed throughout the soil. Especially places such as garden land, cemetery, cattle and poultry breeding places. In fruits and vegetables, even honey can contain this kind of bacteria. They are also present in the intestines of domestic animals, fish intestines, sometimes even in the human intestines. Because these bacteria are abundant in nature, it is very susceptible to food contamination during production, processing, transport and storage. Especially they are infectious and thrive in foods such as canned food, sausage, sausage, milk powder, cheese .

Currently, the standard method for the detection of C. botulinum toxin is the toxicity test of mice. However, this method takes a long time, high cost and is particularly related to medical ethics on the use of laboratory animals. So now, many countries have used PCR techniques to detect C. botulinum and their virulence genes.