Clostridium butyricum

Clostridium butyricum is a strictly anaerobic endospore-forming Gram-positive butyric acid producing bacillus subsisting by means of fermentation using an intracellularly accumulated amylopectin-like α-polyglucan (granulose) as a substrate.

Organisms genetically identified as other Clostridium species have caused human botulism; Clostridium butyricum producing type E toxin and Clostridium baratii producing type F toxin.

Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588 Strain was discovered by Dr. Miyairi in 1933 at Chiba Medical College (now Chiba University School of Medicine) in Japan.

More work on the subject came with a study by DelDuca et al. who used hydrogen produced by the fermentation of glucose by Clostridium butyricum as the reactant at the anode of a hydrogen and air fuel cell.

While this is true in some cases, these enzyme activities have been identified in some obligate anaerobes, and genes for these enzymes and related proteins have been found in their genomes, such as Clostridium butyricum and Methanosarcina barkeri, among others.