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Clostridium novyi is classified into 4 strains (A to D type) by the exotoxins, and the lethal and necrotizing alpha toxin is considered to be the principle toxin of the type B strain in pigs. This toxin causes necrosis by increasing permeability of the cell barrier, and disrupting intercellular junctions. So, C. novyi type B commonly causes infectious necrotic hepatitis, so called black diseases, and it has been observed in sheep and other animals. The infected liver uniformly infiltrated with many gas bubbles, so the liver presents a spongy appearance on the cut surface. Although the C. novyi infections are unusual in pigs, cases of sudden death in sows have been reported in Europe.
This experiment detected the production of specific antibodies of C. novyi type B toxoid using ELISA in swine sera. Sera of 343 sows from 27 farms were used for ELISA detecting antibodies against C. novyi type B toxoid.
In this experiment, 129 sows of 21 farms have been revealed as a positive for C. novyi type B. So the positive rates of total sows and farms were 77.8% and 37.6% respectively. And looking the range of the rate of farms positive for antibodies against C. novyi type B, there were most of farms at range 33~66%.
Although the infection of the C. novyi type B is uncommon, these results can be a useful data for further investigation of C. novyi type B because there was few survey detecting the infection of C. novyi type B for now.
SM Kim, JY Jung, BE Park, JH Jo, JH Han. Detection of antibodies of the C. novyi type B toxoid in swine sera. Proceedings of the 23rd IPVS Congress, 2014.