PRODUCTION OF ALPHA TOXIN OF CLOSTRIDIUM PERFRINGENS

Abstract

The production of alpha toxin of high potency by Cl. perfringens has been, reported by several workers (Macfarlane and Knight, 1941; Adams and Hendee, 1945; Logan et al., 1945; van Heyningen, 1948) . But the methods of preparing these media were tedious in some cases and yields of toxin varied greatly with preparations. Therefore, we decided to study some factors influencing the toxin production. During the course of the investigation, the authors found a preparation of peptone which was quite suitable for toxin production. Since a considerable amount of a suitable lot of this peptone were easily obtainable on market, experiments were tried to investigate conditions under which Cl. perfringens PB6K was capable of producing alpha toxin of high potency.