|Categories:||Causes hemolysis; spore forming; motile; notifiable diseases and bacteria|
|Etymology:||Genus name: a small spindle. |
Species epithet: named after the French bacteriologist J.A.B. Chauveau (1827-1917).
|Significance:||In Sweden, blackleg is endemic in primarely the south eastern counties.
|Type Strain:||ATCC 10092 = NCTC 13023.|
||May form large (5 mm in diameter) colonies, but may also form a continuous "carpet" of bacteria, (the bacteria are swarming). Give hemolysis on sheep blood agar.|
|Micromorphology:||Big straight rods (0.6 x 3-8 µm) with rounded ends, which appear single or in short chains of 3-5 bacteria. B. chauvoei is spore forming and usually motile by means of peritrichous flagella.|
|Gram +/Gram -:||G+|
|Other Enzymes:||DNase +, esculinase +, hyaluronidase +, lecithinase -, neuraminidase +, tryptophanase -.|
|Fermentation of carbohydrates:||
Other carbohydrates: Fructose (-), galactose (+), mannose (+), ribose v, xylose -.
|Virulence Factors:||The toxin CctA (Clostridium chauvoei toxin A), which is a β-barrel pore forming toxin of the leucocidin family is a major virulence factor of C. chauvoei. These proteins are cytotoxic, because they create unregulated pores in the membrane of target cells. Note that CctA is responsible for the strong hemolytic activity seen on blood-agar plates. Other virulence factors are DNase and hyaluronidase, which are named β- and γ-toxin, respectively.|
|16S rRNA Seq.:|
||About 180 differens species have been descibed within genus Clostridium. C. chauvoei is closely related toC. septicum.|
|Legislation:||In Sweden it is compulsary to report blackleg to the Swedish Board of Agriculture.|
|Reference(s):||No. 10, 113|