Interrelationship between drug resistance and bacteriocinogeny of Clostridium perfringens.

One hundred and eight strains of Clostridium perfringens were collected from polluted waters and tested for their drug resistance and bacteriocinogeny . Thirty of the strains were tetracycline resistant and 36 were bacteriocinogenic. Only one strain possessed both tetracycline resistance and bacteriocinogen . Transfer experiments on tetracycline resistance and bacteriocinogeny were carried out with several selected strains among these isolates. Both tetracycline resistance and bacteriocinogeny were shown to be transferable by conjugation-like procedures. Transfer experiments on these two properties revealed that there were two types of recipient strains among the isolates in regard to the acceptance of tetracycline resistance and bacteriocinogeny . In one type of the recipient strain, these two properties seemed to be incompatible although in the other, both tetracycline resistance and bacteriocinogeny were transferred by two-step mating. Transcipients of this two-step mating retransferred their tetracycline resistance but not bacteriocinogeny to another recipient strain. The existence of an incompatibility-like relationship between tetracycline resistance and bacteriocinogeny in one recipient strain, and the inability of these two properties to be co-transferred from the two-step transcipients , suggest a certain interrelationship between the factors responsible for tetracycline resistance and bacteriocinogeny .