May 29, 2018

By: douano@listlabs.com

By: T.J. Smith

Following a botulism outbreak due to contaminated ham that severely sickened 10 and resulted in the death of three people in Ellezelles, Belgium, a review and case study on botulism was published by a researcher named Emile Van Ermengem (Van Ermengem 1897).  While Van Ermengem was not the first to study this syndrome, his article supplied critical information defining botulism as a type of food poisoning having specific paralytic symptoms.   He determined that the illness was an intoxication, not an infection, and that its cause was a bacterial toxin.  He was also able to isolate and characterize the organism responsible for the toxin as an anaerobic spore-forming bacillus, which he named Bacillus botulinus (later renamed Clostridium botulinum).  “Botulinus” is the latin word for sausages, and this nomenclature was used due to the historic link between botulism and improperly processed sausages, particularly blood sausages.  His careful and painstaking research provided the foundation for future studies on botulism, its causes and treatments.

During this time, botulism was thought to be related specifically to improperly processed meat, such as sausages and ham, and caused by a single monospecific toxin.  Within the next decade both of these theories were proven wrong.  In 1904, Dr. G. Landmann isolated a botulinum toxin-producing bacterial strain from preserved bean salad which had caused 11 deaths in Darmstadt, Germany (Landmann 1904).  This was the first reporting of botulism due to a source other than meat or fish.  In 1910, Leuchs showed that the Ellezelles strain from Van Ermengem and the Darmstadt strain from Landmann were immunologically distinct toxins, providing the first evidence that all botulinum neurotoxins were not the same (Leuchs 1910).  This marked the beginning of a century of study related to botulinum neurotoxin diversity which included clinical case reviews and morphological, immunological, and, most recently, genetic studies.

As the bacteria responsible for botulinum neurotoxins initially seemed to be nearly identical in morphology and cultural characteristics, early delineations were the result of serological studies, which were apparently the “hot new thing” of the day.  Antisera produced using a particular bacterial strain was tested against other strains to determine relationships among both the toxins and the bacteria that produced them.  The assays were both qualitative and quantitative and included agglutination, immuno-absorption, and neutralization techniques (Schoenholz and Meyer 1925).  They were originally targeted to both the toxins and the bacteria that produced them, but the emphasis quickly shifted to neutralization of toxins using specific antisera.  These antisera, which were predominantly of equine origin, were developed for treatment purposes as well, and they continue to be the only approved treatment for botulism to this day.  In 1919, Georgina Burke produced antisera from three strains isolated in California, Oregon, and New York, and she was able to show that the toxins from the two West Coast strains were immunologically identical, while the New York toxin was distinct (Burke 1919).  She identified these toxins as type A (West) and Type B (East).  Later studies of U. S. strains by K. F. Meyer and B. Dubovsky substantiated her findings (Meyer and Dubovsky 1922).

In the following decades several additional serotypes were identified.  In 1922, Dr. Ida Bengtson reported a toxin from a C. botulinum strain that was not neutralized by either type A or type B antisera, which she designated type C (Bengtson 1922).  The bacterial strain was isolated from fly larvae that proved to be causative agents in the intoxication of chickens that had ingested these larvae.  This illustrates that botulism is not restricted to humans but rather can be seen in a wide variety of animals as well.  In fact, differential sensitivities of the toxins in animals has formed a background for discerning various toxin types.  In addition, catastrophic losses due to botulism have been noted in domestic fowl, cattle, horses, and even minks and foxes, prompting the development and use of vaccines in these animals for protection.   H. R. Seddon isolated a culture that apparently produced type C toxin from an outbreak in cattle in Australia (Seddon 1922).  The toxin could be neutralized by Bengtson’s antisera, however, the reverse was not true.  This “one-way” neutralization was the first of several anomalies that were discovered when serotyping botulinum neurotoxins.

In 1929, Meyer and Gunnison showed that the toxin from a culture isolated by Theiler and associates in South Africa was immunologically distinct from types A, B, or C.  This toxin, which was also related to intoxication in cattle, was designated type D (Meyer and Gunnison 1929).

In the following decade, several botulism cases were noted that were related to ingestion of fish.  While Russian scientists were the first to note these unusual cases of botulism, it was Dr. Janet Gunnison who determined the toxins were a new type, and Dr. Elizabeth Hazen who published initial reports on type E botulism cases (Gunnison, Cummings et al. 1936, Hazen 1937).  Outbreaks due to dried, smoked, or fermented fish, fish eggs, whale blubber, and seal or walrus meat are common, but there have been rare type E cases related to other foods as well.

The first case due to type F was linked to an outbreak involving duck paste on Langeland Island, Denmark, in 1958 (Moller and Scheibel 1960).  Reported cases due to type F are rare and have been restricted to humans so far.  Type G was isolated from a cornfield in Argentina in 1969 as part of a soil sampling study conducted by Dr D. F. Gimenez and Dr. A. S. Ciccarelli (Gimenez and Ciccarelli 1970).  This type is unusual in that there are no direct reports of intoxications due to type G in people or animals.  However, a study of autopsy materials related to sudden deaths due to unknown causes in Switzerland identified type G producing organisms among the samples (Sonnabend, Sonnabend et al. 1981).  Why type G is only found in Argentina or Switzerland is a mystery.

As of 1970, there were seven known immunologically distinct botulinum toxin types.   However, as we will discover, this was just the beginning of our understanding of the diversity that is seen within botulinum neurotoxins.

About List Labs

List Labs offers over 100 reagents including Botulinum Toxins. These products are used in a wide variety of scientific research studies. You can read about some of them on our citation page. Contact us today to discuss your next project.

About the Author

Theresa Smith has studied botulinum neurotoxins for over 25 years, specializing in toxin countermeasure research, and is considered a leading expert regarding diversity in botulinum neurotoxins as well as the organisms that produce these toxins.

References

Bengtson, I. (1922). “Preliminary note on a toxin-producing anaerobe isolated from the larvae of Lucilia caesar.” Pub Health Repts 37: 164-170.

Burke, G. S. (1919). “Notes on Bacillus botulinus.” J Bact 4: 555-571.

Gimenez, D. F. and A. S. Ciccarelli (1970). “Another type of Clostridium botulinum.” Zentralbl Bakteriol Parasitenk Infektionskr Hyg Abt 215: 221-224.

Gunnison, J. B., et al. (1936). “Clostridium botulinum type E.” Proc Soc Exp Biol Med 35: 278-280.

Hazen, E. L. (1937). “A strain of B. botulinus not classified as type A, B, or C.” J Infect Dis 60: 260-264.

Landmann, G. (1904). “Uber die ursache der Darmstadter bohnenvergiftung.” Hyg Rundschau 10: 449-452.

Leuchs, J. (1910). “Beitraege zur kenntnis des toxins und antitoxins des Bacillus botulinus.” Z Hyg Infekt 76: 55-84.

Meyer, K. F. and B. Dubovsky (1922). “The distribution of the spores of B. botulinus in the United States. IV.” J Infect Dis 31: 559-594.

Meyer, K. F. and J. B. Gunnison (1929). “South African cultures of Clostridium botulinum and parabotulinum. XXXVII with a description of Cl. botulinum type D, N. SP.” J Infect Dis 45: 106-118.

Moller, V. and I. Scheibel (1960). “Preliminary report of an apparently new type of Cl. botulinum ” Acta Path Microbiol Scand 48: 80.

Schoenholz, P. and K. F. Meyer (1925). “The serologic classification of B. botulinus.” J Immunol 10: 1-53.

Seddon, H. R. (1922). “Bulbar paralysis in cattle due to the action of a toxicogenic bacillus, with a discussion on the relationship of the condition to forage poisoning (botulism).” J Comp Path Ther 35: 147-190.

Sonnabend, O., et al. (1981). “Isolation of Clostridium botulinum type G and identification of type G botulinal toxin in humans: report of five sudden unexpected deaths.” J Infect Dis 143: 22-27.

Van Ermengem, E. (1897). “A new anaerobic bacillus and its relation to botulism (originally published as “Ueber einen neuen anaeroben Bacillus und seine beziehungen zum botulismus” in Zeitschrift fur Hygiene und Infektionskrankheiten, 26:1-56) ” Clin Infect Dis 4: 701-719.