[deyneko]

Hi all,
today I met questions - a child 6mo who eaten honey then he/she became floppy child, of course we all know this famous situation. Question is "in which location neurotoxin is encoded"? I just stupidity know answer - temperate phage. But I can't image this process, does clostridium (or its spores) need a phage to make neurotoxin? In other words if canned food (of course without O2) no contains the temperate phages - no neurotoxin? And where from appears the phages?

 

[tunde michael]

Lysogenic phage refers to a type of bacterial virus, also called temperate phage possibly because it does not result in lysis of infected bacteria unlike the other type called lytic phage which results in bacterial lysis and death.
They carry out the two types of transduction, a form of horizontal gene transfer common among prokaryotes. others forms includes transformation, conjugation.
Now, to your question,
C. botulinum lives mostly in the soil, gets into honey etc, an anaerobic environment suitable for spore formation. the aim of its spore formation is neurotoxin production (unlike most other spore formers whose aim is survival).
The gene for neurotoxin production resides in the chromosome, acquired via lysogeny at a time probably along evolutionary transitions.
Hope this helps.