The transcriptional profile of deoxycholate-induced sporulation in Clostridium perfringens food poisoning isolate

Clostridium perfringens type A is a common source of food poisoning in humans. Vegetative cells sporulate in the small intestinal tract and produce a major pathogenic factor, C. perfringens enterotoxin (CPE) during sporulation. Although sporulation plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of food poisoning, the mechanisms to induce in vivo sporulation remain unclear. Bile salts had been identified to mediate sporulation, and we have confirmed deoxycholate (DCA)-induced sporulation in C. perfringens strain NCTC8239 co-cultured with human intestinal epithelial Caco-2 cells. In this study, we performed global transcriptome analysis of strain NCTC8239 to elucidate the mechanism to induce sporulation by DCA. From the 55 contigs of C. perfringens strain NCTC8239, 2778 coding sequences were extracted. We designed a DNA probe by utilizing eArray provided by Agilent Technologies. The custom 8×15K oligonucleotide array, containing 60 mer oligonucleotide probes for 2,778 genes in strain NCTC8239, 2 bacterial control genes: 16S rRNA and 23S rRNA, and 3 human control genes: beta-2-microglobulin, glucuronidase beta and 18S rRNA, were ordered to Agilent Technologies. Each probe was spotted in five-fold on each microarray. Each strain was run in triplicate or quadruplicate.