Table 1.

Characteristics of toxins and extracellular degradative enzymes produced by C. perfringens

Toxin/Enzyme	Biological activitya	Cellular targeta	Molecular size (kDa)a	Pore size (nm)b	Number of monomers forming the poreb	Gene locationc
CPA	Phospholipase C and Sphingomyelinase	Plasma membrane	42.5	-	-	Chromosome
CPB	Pore-forming toxin	Plasma membrane	35	1.2	7?	pCW3-like plasmid
ETX	Pore-forming toxin	Plasma membrane	33	1	7	pCW3-like plasmid
ITX	Actin-specific ADP- ribosyltransferase	Cytoskeleton	Iota-a: 47.5 Iota-b: 71.5	~1	7	pCW3-like plasmid
CPE	Pore-forming toxin	Plasma membrane	35	1.4	6	Chromosome or pCW3-like plasmid
NetB	Pore-forming toxin	Plasma membrane	33	1.8	7	pCW3-like plasmid
NetF	Pore-forming toxin	Plasma membrane	31.7	4-6	6-9	pCW3-like plasmid
NetE	Putative pore-forming toxin	Plasma membrane	32.9	ND	ND	pCW3-like plasmid
NetG	Putative pore-forming toxin	Plasma membrane	31.7	ND	ND	pCW3-like plasmid
BEC	Actin-specific ADP-ribosyltransferase	Cytoskeleton	BEC-a: 47 BEC-b: 83	-	-	pCP13-like plasmid
TpeL	Ras-specific mono-glucosyltransferase	Rho-signal transduction	~206	-	-	Plasmid
CPB2	Putative pore-forming toxin	Plasma membrane	28	ND	ND	pCW3-like or pCP13-like plasmid
PFO	Pore-forming toxin; cholesterol- dependent cytolysin	Plasma membrane	54	25-45	40-50	Chromosome
Delta toxin	Pore-forming toxin	Plasma membrane	32	4-5	7?	Plasmid
NanI	Sialidase	Mucus/Surface glycolipids	77	-	-	Chromosome
NanJ	Sialidase	Mucus/Surface glycolipids/glycoproteins	129	-	-	Chromosome
NanH	Sialidase	Mucus-Surface glycolipids/glycoproteins	43	-	-	Chromosome
Kappa toxin	Collagenase	Surface glycolipids/glycoproteins	~ 80	-	-	Chromosome
Mu toxin	Hyaluronidase	Hyaluronic acid	182.6	-	-	Chromosome
Lambda toxin	Protease	?	36	-	-	pCW3-like plasmid
α-clostripain	Cysteine Protease	?	59.6	-	-	Chromosome

^aCompiled from [6,8,22,37,45,59,64,68,72,82,255,293–296]

^bCompiled from [5,28,31,36,58,60,68,73,78,297–301]

^cCompiled from [12,62,109,112,115,120,123,136–144,302,303]