ACTA VETERINARIA ET ZOOTECHNICA SINICA ›› 2009, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (5): 717-724.doi:

• 预防兽医 • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Genetic Diversity of Clostridium perfringens Isolated from Healthy Chickens at Commercial Farms Revealed by AFLP and ERIC-PCR

NI Xue-qin1,2, ZHENG Xiao-li1,4, ZENG Dong1,2*, Joshua Gong3, SONG Zhen-yin1,4   

  1. 1.Animal Microecology Institute, College of Veterinary Medicine, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya′an 625014, China;2.Key Laboratory of Animal Disease and Human Health of Sichuan Province, Ya′an 625014, China; 3.Food Research Program, Agriculture and AgriFood Canada, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 5C9;4.College of Resources and Environment, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya′an 625014, China
  • Received:1900-01-01 Revised:1900-01-01 Online:2009-05-25 Published:2009-05-25

Abstract: The objective of this research was to study the epidemiology of C. perfringens colonizing healthy birds, characterize the population diversity and observe how diversity changed between different areas. Isolates were obtained from fresh feces and cecal samples of healthy chicken in ten farms of 8 cities in Sichuan province. Each isolate was typed using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus PCR (ERIC-PCR). A total of 34 C. perfringens isolates of type A from 600 birds were typed. There found 12 AFLP genotypes and 8 ERIC-PCR genotypes. The analysis of genetic type and origin source revealed that isolates from different farms had different genetic types. The subtype of C. perfringen appeared to be simple within a single farm, and mixed with few other gene subtypes. The dominant gene type of C. perfringen was AFLP gene type Ⅷ or ERIC-PCR gene type 1. These results reveal that the diversity of C. perfringen of healthy chickens in Sichuan province is low and there is close correlation between the epidemiology and regions.