Properties and production characteristics of vomiting, diarrheal, and necrotizing toxins of Bacillus cereus

Abstract

Evidence is provided that the enterotoxin of Bacillus cereus variously described in the literature as diarrheagenic toxin, diarrheal agent, fluid accumulation factor, vascular permeability factor, dermonecrotic toxin, and intestinonecrotic toxin is a single relatively unstable protein of molecular weight approximately 50,000 and isoelectric point of the order of 4.9. It is presumed to be the enterotoxin responsible for the diarrheal-type B. cereus food poisoning syndrome and it may also be the pyogenic and pyrogenic factor in nongastrointestinal B. cereus infections of man and animals. The enterotoxin is a vegetative growth metabolite produced to one degree or another by almost all B. cereus strains and is readily separated from phospholipase and heat-labile cereolysin but less readily differentiated from a heat-stable hemolysin. It is lethal to mice but may also be separable from another mouse lethal factor by electrofocusing. The emetic toxin responsible for the vomiting-type B. cereus food poisoning syndrome is clearly distinguishable from the diarrheal and other toxic factors and appears to be a highly stable compound of molecular size <5000.