Extensive genome analysis identifies novel plasmid families in Clostridium perfringens

Abstract

Globally, the anaerobic bacterium Clostridium perfringens causes severe disease in a wide array of hosts; however, C. perfrin-gens strains are also carried asymptomatically. Accessory genes are responsible for much of the observed phenotypic variation and virulence within this species, with toxins frequently encoded on conjugative plasmids and many isolates carrying up to 10 plasmids. Despite this unusual biology, current genomic analyses have largely excluded isolates from healthy hosts or environmental sources. Accessory genomes, including plasmids, also have often been excluded from broader scale phylogenetic investigations. Here we interrogate a comprehensive collection of 464 C. perfrin..