Finished Whole-Genome Sequences of Clostridium butyricum Toxin Subtype E4 and Clostridium baratii Toxin Subtype F7 Strains.

Clostridium butyricum and Clostridium baratii species have been known to produce botulinum toxin types E and F, respectively, which can cause botulism, a rare but serious neuroparalytic disease. Here, we present finished genome sequences for two of these clinically relevant strains.

GENOME ANNOUNCEMENT

Some rare strains of Clostridium butyricum and Clostridium baratii carry the botulinum neurotoxin gene cluster (1–8). Botulinum toxin causes a rare but serious disease that produces a descending flaccid paralysis that can result in death if not treated (9).

C. baratii type F strain CDC51267 and C. butyricum type E strain CDC51208 were sequenced by Illumina and PacBio. A hybrid assembly method was utilized, and the sequences from both isolates were assembled using Velvet 1.2.08, HGAP 3, and Phrap 4.24. The coverages for C. baratii isolate CDC51267 were 357× by PacBio and 342× by Illumina. The coverages for C. butyricum isolate CDC51208 were 52.6× by PacBio and 319× by Illumina.

C. baratii serotype F strain CDC51267 was isolated from a food specimen associated with a foodborne botulism outbreak. The finished genome includes one plasmid, pNPD11_1 (accession no. CP014203), of 120,667 bp, with 25.3% G+C content and 119 coding regions. The chromosome (accession no. CP014204) size is 3,091,050 bp, with 28.4% GC content and 2,885 identified coding regions. The toxin gene was determined to be subtype F7 and was found within the plasmid.

C. butyricum serotype E strain CDC51208 was isolated from an infant botulism case. The resulting finished genome includes two plasmids of 9,567 bp (pNPD4_1, accession no. CP013240) and 820,516 bp (pNPD4_2, accession no. CP13238). These plasmids consist of 26.8% and 28.2% G+C content, as well as 8 and 763 coding sequences (CDSs), respectively. The chromosome (accession no. CP013239) has 3,809,831 bp, 28.8% G+C content, and 3,334 identified coding regions. The toxin gene was determined to be subtype E4 and was found within the pNPD4_2 plasmid.

Accession number(s).

These finished sequences have been deposited in GenBank, with accession numbers CP014204 and CP014203 for C. baratii strain CDC51267, and accession numbers CP013238, CP013239, and CP013240 for C. butyricum strain CDC51208.