Talk:Clostridium tetani

Copyright violation check request

This is a automatic report by my bot that finds copyright violation. Please, expert people, clean this article, I think here is copyrighted stuff of University of Wisconsin Department of Bacteriology and maybe others... --F. Cosoleto 00:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• google - http://www.tjclarkinc.com/bacterial_diseases/tetanus_and_botulism.htm
• google - http://textbookofbacteriology.net/clostridia.html
• google - http://www.bact.wisc.edu/themicrobialworld/clostridia.html
• google - http://www.smmu.edu.cn/zykj/~microbiology/tetanus.htm
  • Tetanus toxin is one of the three most poisonous substances known, the other two being the toxins of botulism and diphtheria. The toxin is produced by growing cells and released only on cell lysis. Cells lyse naturally during germination the outgrowth of spores, as well as during vegetative growth. After inoculation of a wound with C. tetani spores, only a minimal amount of spore germination and vegetative cell growth are required until the toxin is produced.
• google - http://www.thedoctorslounge.net/infections/microbiology/bacteria/clostridium_tetani.htm
  • Tetanospasmin is similar in structure to botulinum toxin, but very different in effect. It is a zinc-dependent metalloproteinase. There is a heavy protein chain and a light chain connected by a disulfide bridge. The bacterium synthesizes the tetanus toxin as a single 150kDa polypeptide chain (called the progenitor toxin), that is cleaved extracellularly by a bacterial protease into a 100 kDa heavy chain (fragment B) and a 50kDa light chain (fragment A) which remain connected by a disulfide bridge. The specific protease that cleaves the progenitor toxin can be found in culture filtrates of C. tetani. Cleavage of the progenitor toxin into A and B fragments can also be induced artificially with trypsin.
• google - http://www.tjclarkinc.com/bacterial_diseases/tetanus_and_botulism.htm
• google - http://textbookofbacteriology.net/clostridia.html
• google - http://www.bact.wisc.edu/themicrobialworld/clostridia.html
• google - http://www.biologybrowser.com/cgi-bin/search/r.cgi?ID=1152604493
• google - http://www.smmu.edu.cn/zykj/~microbiology/tetanus.htm
  • Tetanospasmin initially binds to peripheral nerve terminals. It is transported within the axon and across synaptic junctions until it reaches the central nervous system. There it becomes rapidly fixed to gangliosides at the presynaptic inhibitory motor nerve endings, and is taken up into the axon by endocytosis. The effect of the toxin is to block the release of inhibitory neurotransmitters (glycine and gamma-amino butyric acid) across the synaptic cleft, which is required to check the nervous impulse. If nervous impulses cannot be checked by normal inhibitory mechanisms, it produces the generalized muscular spasms characteristic of tetanus. Tetanospasmin appears to act by selective cleavage of a protein component of synaptic vesicles, synaptobrevin II, and this prevents the release of neurotransmitters by the cells.
• google - http://www.tjclarkinc.com/bacterial_diseases/tetanus_and_botulism.htm
• google - http://textbookofbacteriology.net/clostridia.html
• google - http://www.bact.wisc.edu/themicrobialworld/clostridia.html
• google - http://www.smmu.edu.cn/zykj/~microbiology/tetanus.htm
  • The receptor to which tetanospasmin binds has been reported as ganglioside GT and/or GD1b, but its exact identity is still in question. Binding appears to depend on the number and position of sialic acid residues on the ganglioside. Isolated B fragments, but not A fragments will bind to the ganglioside. The A fragment has toxic (enzymatic) activity after the B fragment secures its entry. Binding appears to be an irreversible event. Recovery depends on sprouting a new axon terminal.

Yup, this is a big pile of copy vio here. The history indicates that the passages in question were all added by Jared Wilmoth (talk · contribs · logs) and appeared in the article: here. I will attempt to rewrite what I can, sigh.--DO11.10 01:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that should be fine, but I might have missed a few things...--DO11.10 05:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you DO11.10 for your effort against copyright violations. --F. Cosoleto 15:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Ways of prevention?

Please add ways of prevention. cow_2001 15:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Main topic...

This article mainly discusses the toxins excreted by C. tetani, and much less about the actual bacteria. I think discussion of the toxin is fine, but how about the bacteria's life cycle, epidemiology, etc? Much of this information is a repeat from the tetanus page. Faunablues (talk) 17:06, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

NPoV

I am deleting the section about treatment: it concerns the disease, not this organism (not sure if clostridia fall ill at all). IMHO, this article needs to concentrate on the organism without giving undue weight to its significance to humans (NPoV), primarily: natural reservoir, hosts (naturally occurs in the bowel of equines, other animals), source of infection (usually soil), etc. --Abanima (talk) 19:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Comprehensibility

Could the Wiki pages on microbes be made easier to read? Right now they are next to incomprehensible because of the huge amount of scientific-ish words. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.90.61.54 (talk) 21:14, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I mean, could shorter, more common words be used? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.90.61.54 (talk) 21:19, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Question

What kingdom is this living thing in — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.90.61.54 (talk) 21:17, 17 May 2012 (UTC) Bubblelover06 (talk) 15:22, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Shape/Appearance

First sentence: "box-car shaped" Second sentence: "its appearance on a gram stain resembles tennis rackets or drumsticks." First sentence of Characteristics section: "Rod-shaped"

So which is it? Anastrophe (talk) 22:01, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Removed Historical Case Section

Was about 1 case that was unusual, and added very little to the page overall. Red Fiona (talk) 19:01, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Clostridium tetani/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: I'll have a go at this. Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 11:46, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Comments

Lead

• "drumsticks[1]": where [1] is a large microbiology text with no page ref; but the ref shouldn't be in the lead anyway.  Done

• "All mammals are susceptible to the disease.[2]", where [2] is about Elephants. Two things here: we shouldn't be introducing "new" claims and citations in the lead; and Elephants, however big, aren't "all mammals" (nor is Twycross Zoo necessarily a reliable source). The zoo page does cite a source, Hirsh and Zee (or is the surname Yuan), but without a page ref, so I think we do need something better. The claim might move into 'Role in disease'.  Done

  Removed the claim; it was added since I last worked on the page and it escaped my notice. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll poke around to see if the claim about "all mammals" is true and add it to the "Role in disease" section.

• Lead image caption: better say it's drumstick/tennis racket-shaped when forming spores.  Done

  Changed the caption; do you think it's clear enough or should we explicitly mention drumstick/tennis racket?

  It's fine if that's how you want it.

Characteristics

• "anaerobe and cannot survive": perhaps "anaerobe, meaning that it cannot survive".  Done

  Hmmm I was trying to differentiate between a facultative anaerobe and an obligate anaerobe. I changed the sentence, but I think there's a less awkward way to phrase that. Thinking about it...

Evolution

• "Within Clostridium, C. tetani ". Since the previous sentence also contains ""Within Clostridium", suggest you drop this second lead-in.  Done

• "includes other pathogenic Clostridium species such as...": Please follow this with abbreviations of the genus, i.e. C. botulinum, ... There are three instances in the paragraph that should be abbreviated.  Done

Role in disease

• I wonder whether we shouldn't say something about how being an anaerobe helps make C. Tetani such a dangerous wound pathogen; clearly, it can't grow in well-oxygenated tissues. Maybe you have a suitable source to discuss this.  Done

  I added a sentence and a source to highlight this to the reader. Does this address your concern? (Also the book is online-only for me, so there's no page numbers, or even a DOI that I can find...)

• Maybe spell out nanogram at first instance, the abbreviation ng may not be familiar to many readers.  Done

Research

• Please wikilink genome, Mbp.  Done
• Redlink casein hydrolysate could be avoided by rewording as hydrolysed casein (or by linking to casein with the existing wording). Done

  Fixed wikilinks so they point to the media/agar intended. Made stub for casein hydrolysate media. Will look for more sources.

History

• "clinical descriptions ... the fifth century BC": I think we should have the name of the author and book here, really. Done

  I'm having some trouble getting to the bottom of this. Several tetanus chapters and reviews give passing mention to the disease being known "since antiquity" or since some century BCE; some attribute to the Egyptians as first describers; few cite the source. I'll get a chance to dig around over the next few days and get back to you on this.

  Sounds like one of those stories that is copied from textbook to textbook without anyone's ever checking the sources. It would never happen on the 'pedia... Presumably "Hippocrates" is intended; he wrote “If in a person suffering from a fever, the neck be suddenly twisted round and swallowing becomes almost impossible though there is no swelling, then he will die” (Aphorisms VII:59a). Here is the diagnosis and disclosure: “The commander of the large ship: the anchor crushed his forefinger, the bone below it on the right hand. Inflammation developed, gangrene…Part of the finger fell away…After that, problems with the tongue, he said he could not articulate anything. Prediction made that opisthonis [the lethal climax of tetanus] would come. His jaws became fixed together, then it went to the neck, on the third day he was entirely convulsed backward, with sweating. On the sixth day after the prediction, he died” (Epidemics 5:74).

  Yes! I found a commentary piece that quotes the above from Aphorisms and inserted that as the source. Ajpolino (talk) 18:22, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

• "battle wounds": perhaps we should talk about the death rate from tetanus among WW1 casualties. Done

  I've added a sentence about how equine antiserum kept tetanus at bay in WWI (particularly amazing is Fig. 3 from that paper if you have access). As far as this section generally goes, I'd like to spend some time on Tetanus#History when I get a minute. There's much more rich history about the disease than what is there... Ajpolino (talk) 18:22, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

  Yes, it's an important aspect.

References

• Currently we have three formats in use: Doe J, Doe, J, and Doe, Joe. Please pick one. Done
• Ref 9 Hamborsky / Pink Book - better say that's Chapter 21; really the refs should be divided by page (currently it's pages 341-352, see the PDF, and as a bare minimum the ref should say that, too, for all 11 instances, but it'd be much nicer to give exact pages.) Done

  Added chapter name and page numbers. Didn't add exact pages for each instance of ref used. I hope the source of information will be clear to anyone following the ref since it's relatively short and has section headings. Though if you feel strongly that it helps the reader, I'll happily split it up by page number.Ajpolino (talk) 17:48, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

  Ok.

• Same for ref 8, Todar, it's pages 3-6. Done
• Same for refs 1, 4, 6, 7. Page ranges please. Done
• Ref 10 Bruggemann, please spell out full page range "1316–1321". Done
• Why do we need 'Further reading' "Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple"? If it's useful it should be cited in the text, with author, publisher, and page(s). Done

  Also removed two of the ELs.Ajpolino (talk) 17:48, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Summary

Well, I hope you are pleased with the article after this amount of polishing. I think it is well up to GA standard. I hope you will take the time to assist other editors by reviewing one or two articles from the GAN queue - some seem to be languishing there for months at the moment! Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:01, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap: Thank you for taking the time! I'll direct myself there presently! Ajpolino (talk) 17:03, 31 August 2019 (UTC)