INVESTIGADORES
BIANCO Maria Isabel
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Presence of Clostridium botulinum in soil and chamomile and its relation with infant botulism
Autor/es:
BIANCO MI, LÚQUEZ C, DE JONG LIT, CAGNONI H, FERNÁNDEZ RA, CICCARELLI AS
Lugar:
Mendoza, Argentina
Reunión:
Otro; XXI Reunión Científica Anual de la Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo; 2003
Institución organizadora:
Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo
Resumen:
Intestinal colonization of Clostridium botulinum (Cb) and later absorption of its toxin causes infant botulism (IB). This is the most important form of human botulism and affects infants under one year of age. However, its transmission has not been elucidated.  Because soil is the main source of Cb, one of the possible vehicles implicated could be environmental dust.  However, since the infection occurs in the intestinal tract the arrival of spores could be explained by the consumption of certain foods. We propose that some medicinal plants could be implicated. With the aim to contribute to the knowledge of IB transmission, we investigated both, soil and Matricaria spp (chamomile) samples. We examined 303 soil samples (276 from Mendoza and 27 from Buenos Aires) and 19 chamomile samples (13 from Mendoza and 6 from Buenos Aires). Aliquots of suspensions were inoculated in chopped-meat medium broth after heat shock (80ºC, 10 min) and incubated for five days at 34ºC. Supernatants were tested by bioassay. Cb was isolated in solid media. Toxin was identified by quantitative neutralization (1000 LD50/mouse). We detected 120 (39,6%) positive soil samples (117 from Mendoza and 3 from Buenos Aires) and 6 (31,6%) positive chamomile samples (4 from Mendoza and 2 from Buenos Aires).  Due to its high prevalence of Cb, both soil and chamomile could be important factors in the IB transmission.