Targeted Mass Spectrometry Analysis of Clostridium perfringens Toxins

Clostridium perfringens is an anaerobic, gram-positive, spore-forming bacterium spread throughout the environment. This bacterium is a common agent in the gastrointestinal tracts of healthy human beings and other mammals. Simultaneously, this agent is one of the most significant producers of toxins among all known bacteria. This expressive toxicity is due to the bacterium’s ability collectively to produce different protein toxins and/or enzymes with diverse modes of action. The present study uses currently developed targeted proteomic methods for the simultaneous detection of selected C. perfringens protein toxins. The method was applied in different kinds of environmental matrices and was used to analyze toxins production in a set of collection strains.