Identification and cloning of two immunogenic Clostridium perfringens proteins, elongation factor Tu (EF-Tu) and pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase (PFO) of C. perfringens.

Clostridium-related poultry diseases such as necrotic enteritis (NE) and gangrenous dermatitis (GD) cause substantial economic losses on a global scale. Two antigenic Clostridium perfringens proteins, elongation factor Tu (EF-Tu) and pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase (PFO), were identified by reaction with immune sera from commercial meat-type chickens with clinical outbreak of Clostridium infections. In addition to the genes encoding EF-Tu and PFO, C. perfringens alpha-toxin and necrotic enteritis B-like (NetB) toxin were also expressed in Escherichia coli and their corresponding recombinant proteins were purified. Using the four recombinant proteins as target antigens in ELISA immunoassays, high serum antibody titers were observed not only in chickens with clinical signs of Clostridium infections, but also in apparently healthy animals from the same disease-endemic farm. By contrast, no antibodies against any of the proteins were present in the serum of a specific pathogen-free bird. In ELISA using recombinant proteins of C. perfringens, the levels of anti-bacterial protein antibodies were also higher in chickens which were experimentally induced to show NE clinical signs after co-infection with C. perfringens and Eimeria maxima compared with uninfected controls. These results show that two antigenic C. perfringens proteins, EF-Tu and PFO can be useful detection antigens for C. perfringens-afflicted infections in commercial poultry.