Reoccurrence of botulinum neurotoxin subtype A3 inducing food-borne botulism, Slovakia, 2015

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

A case of food-borne botulism occurred in Slovakia in 2015. Clostridium botulinum type A was isolated from three nearly empty commercial hummus tubes. The product, which was sold in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, was withdrawn from the market and a warning was issued immediately through the European Commission’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF). Further investigation revealed the presence of botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) subtype BoNT/A3, a very rare subtype implicated in only one previous outbreak (Loch Maree in Scotland, 1922). It is the most divergent subtype of BoNT/A with 15.4% difference at the amino acid level compared with the prototype BoNT/A1. This makes it more prone to evading immunological and PCR-based detection. It is recommended that testing laboratories are advised that this subtype has been associated with food-borne botulism for the second time since the first outbreak almost 100 years ago, and to validate their immunological or PCR-based methods against this divergent subtype.

Related collections

Most cited references 26

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Quantification of the detrimental effect of a single primer-template mismatch by real-time PCR using the 16S rRNA gene as an example.

D Bru, F. Martin-Laurent, L Philippot (2008)

We investigated the effects of internal primer-template mismatches on the efficiency of PCR amplification using the 16S rRNA gene as the model template DNA. We observed that the presence of a single mismatch in the second half of the primer extension sequence can result in an underestimation of up to 1,000-fold of the gene copy number, depending on the primer and position of the mismatch.

0 comments Cited 93 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Laboratory diagnostics of botulism.

Miia Lindström, Hannu Korkeala (2006)

Botulism is a potentially lethal paralytic disease caused by botulinum neurotoxin. Human pathogenic neurotoxins of types A, B, E, and F are produced by a diverse group of anaerobic spore-forming bacteria, including Clostridium botulinum groups I and II, Clostridium butyricum, and Clostridium baratii. The routine laboratory diagnostics of botulism is based on the detection of botulinum neurotoxin in the patient. Detection of toxin-producing clostridia in the patient and/or the vehicle confirms the diagnosis. The neurotoxin detection is based on the mouse lethality assay. Sensitive and rapid in vitro assays have been developed, but they have not yet been appropriately validated on clinical and food matrices. Culture methods for C. botulinum are poorly developed, and efficient isolation and identification tools are lacking. Molecular techniques targeted to the neurotoxin genes are ideal for the detection and identification of C. botulinum, but they do not detect biologically active neurotoxin and should not be used alone. Apart from rapid diagnosis, the laboratory diagnostics of botulism should aim at increasing our understanding of the epidemiology and prevention of the disease. Therefore, the toxin-producing organisms should be routinely isolated from the patient and the vehicle. The physiological group and genetic traits of the isolates should be determined.

0 comments Cited 92 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Simultaneous quantification of five bacterial and plant toxins from complex matrices using a multiplexed fluorescent magnetic suspension assay.

Stefan Kaulfuss, Diana Pauly, Marc-André Guerville … (2009)

Proteotoxins such as ricin, abrin, botulinum neurotoxins type A and B (BoNT/A, BoNT/B) and staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) are regarded as potential biological warfare agents which could be used for bioterrorism attacks on the food chain. In this study we used a novel immunisation strategy to generate high-affinity monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies against native ricin, BoNT/A, and BoNT/B. The antibodies were used along with antibodies against SEB and abrin to establish a highly sensitive magnetic and fluorescent multiplex bead array with excellent sensitivities between 2 ng/L and 546 ng/L from a minimal sample volume of 50 microL. The assay was validated using 20 different related analytes and the assay precision was determined. Advancing the existing bead array technology, the novel magnetic and fluorescent microbeads proved amenable to enrichment procedures, by further increasing sensitivity to 0.3-85 ng/L, starting from a sample volume of 500 microL. Furthermore, the method was successfully applied for the simultaneous identification of the target toxins spiked into complex food matrices like milk, baby food and yoghurt. On the basis of our results, the assay appears to be a good tool for large-scale screening of samples from the food supply chain.

0 comments Cited 43 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Euro Surveill

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Euro Surveill

Journal ID (publisher-id): ES

Title: Eurosurveillance

Publisher: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)

ISSN (Print): 1025-496X

ISSN (Electronic): 1560-7917

Publication date (Print): 10 August 2017

Volume: 22

Issue: 32

Electronic Location Identifier: 30591

Affiliations

[1 ]Regional Authority of Public Health Banská Bystrica, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

[2 ]Robert Koch Institute, Consultant laboratory for neurotoxin-producing clostridia (botulism, tetanus), Berlin, Germany

[3 ]Robert Koch Institute, Centre for Biological Threats and Special Pathogens, Berlin, Germany

[4 ]F. D. Roosevelt Teaching Hospital, Department of Neurology, Slovak Medical University, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

[5 ]Slovak Medical University, Faculty of Public Health, Bratislava, Slovakia

Author notes

Correspondence: Martin Bernhard Dorner ( dornerm@ 123456rki.de )

Article

Publisher ID: 16-00405 Publisher ID: 30591

DOI: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2017.22.32.30591

PMC ID: 6373612

SO-VID: bf7a771c-8fa6-449e-acf0-c152351f7ba2

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) Licence. You may share and adapt the material, but must give appropriate credit to the source, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made.

Reoccurrence of botulinum neurotoxin subtype A3 inducing food-borne botulism, Slovakia, 2015

Read this article at

Abstract

Related collections

Ticks and tick-borne pathogens

Most cited references 26

Quantification of the detrimental effect of a single primer-template mismatch by real-time PCR using the 16S rRNA gene as an example.

Laboratory diagnostics of botulism.

Simultaneous quantification of five bacterial and plant toxins from complex matrices using a multiplexed fluorescent magnetic suspension assay.

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Article

History

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 147

Cited by 2

Most referenced authors 772