Title: Molecular Mechanism of Germination of Clostridium perfringens Spores.

Clostridium perfringens is the causative agent of a wide variety of diseases in animals and humans. C. perfringens can produce more than 15 toxins. However, individual strains produce a subset of these toxins. Although a small percentage of C. perfringens isolates (mostly belonging to type A) produce C. perfringens enterotoxin (CPE), these are very important human gastrointestinal (GI) pathogens, causing C. perfringens type A food poisoning (FP) and nonfood-borne GI diseases (NFBGID). Due to its anaerobic nature and the ability to form extremely resistant spores found ubiquitously in the environment, to cause the wide array of C. perfringens-associated diseases (CPAD), these C. perfringens spores must germinate, release the nascent cell, grow and produce their toxins. Therefore, germination of C. perfringens spores is the initial and perhaps most important step for the progression of diseases in animals and humans. Although extensive research has been conducted on the mechanism of spore germination of Bacillus species, very few studies of spore germination have been conducted in Clostridium species mainly due to the lack of molecular genetic tools. Genomic comparisons reveal significant differences in the backbone of th