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J Bacteriol. 1961 August; 82(2): 275-283
Copyright ©, 1961, The Williams & Wilkins Company. All Rights Reserved.

FATE OF PARTIALLY PURIFIED C¹⁴-LABELED TOXIN OF CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS

^a Department of Microbiology, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

ABSTRACT

ELLNER, PAUL D. (University of Florida, Gainesville). Fate of partially purified C¹⁴-labeled toxin of Clostridium perfringens. J. Bacteriol. 82:275–283. 1961.—A study was made of the fate of Clostridium perfringens toxin in susceptible animals. Labeled toxin was prepared by growing C. perfringens type A in a complex casein hydrolyzate medium containing a tryptic hydrolyzate of C¹⁴-labeled algal protein. The toxin was purified about 30-fold (in terms of lecithinase activity) by ammonium sulfate and acetone precipitations. The tagged toxin was injected intravenously into mice and rabbits, and the disappearance from the blood stream, deposition in organs and appearance in urine and expired air determined by measurement of radioactivity. Experimental data showed that toxin disappears rapidly from the bloodstream following intravenous injection, with radioactivity appearing in the urine and expired air shortly thereafter (10 to 20 min). The organs primarily responsible for the uptake of toxin from the blood are the liver (72%), lungs (15%), kidney (8%), and spleen (5%). The toxin is not bound to skeletal muscle. Fractionation of the liver into subcellular particles by centrifugation showed the radioactivity to be concentrated in the mitochondrial fraction. These experiments indicate that the toxin is rapidly removed from the circulating blood, is metabolized, and breakdown products excreted in the urine, with 1 carbon fragments eliminated as CO₂ in the expired air.

¹ Present address: Department of Medical Microbiology, College of Medicine, The University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont.