Occurrence of Clostridium perfringens β2 toxin in healthy sheep from Kashmir valley

Clostridium perfringensis a rod shaped, Gram-positive, anaerobic spore forming bacterium, able to produce various toxins which are responsible for various lesions and clinical symptoms in livestock. Clostridium perfringens has the ability to produce many toxins viz., alpha, beta, theta, iota, epsilon and kappa. In addition to the above mentioned toxins, C. perfringens can also produce a novel beta2 (β2) toxin. In the present study 415 samples were collected from healthy sheep from Kashmir valley. The isolates were confirmed by 16S rRNA specific PCR that revealed, 265 (63.85%) samples positive for C. perfringens. These 265 isolates were further screened for four toxin genes viz., cpa, cpb, etx and cbp2 using a multiplex PCR. All C. perfringens isolates were positive for α toxin gene, but not forβ, or, therefore, all strains were identified as type A C. perfringens.72.17% of the isolates harboured both α &β2 toxin gene. The high (100%) occurrence of C. perfringens was observed, even in day-old lambs. These findings clearly suggest that α- toxin and β2- toxin gene harbouring C. Perfringens genotype are widely distributed among animal species.