Clostridioides difficile has become the most common healthcare-associated pathogen in the United States, leading the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to classify C. difficile as an "urgent" public health threat that requires "urgent and aggressive action." This call to action has …

Children with Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) can experience recurrent or severe disease. Recurrent CDI occurs in 20%-30% of children with an initial CDI episode. A careful clinical evaluation is important to distinguish recurrent CDI from other disorders that cause recurring gastrointestin …

Clostridioides difficile is a spore-forming, obligate anaerobe, and ubiquitous nosocomial pathogen. While C. difficile infection in adults causes a spectrum of disease, including pseudomembranous colitis and toxic megacolon, healthy infants are asymptomatically colonized at high rates. The mechanism …

Clostridioides difficile is a prominent cause of health care-related gastrointestinal illness in adults. C. difficile infection (CDI) has been researched for over 40 years; however, research on pediatric CDI specifically has lagged behind for various reasons. Over the past decade, C. difficile has b …

Phosphorylation is a post-translational modification that can affect both house-keeping functions and virulence characteristics in bacterial pathogens. In the Gram-positive enteropathogen Clostridioides difficile the extent and nature of phosphorylation events is poorly characterized, though a protein-kinase mutant strain demonstrates pleiotropic phenotypes. Here, we used an immobilized metal affinity chromatography strategy to characterize serine, threonine and tyrosine phosphorylation in C. difficile . We find limited protein phosphorylation in the exponential growth phase but a sharp increase in the number of phosphopeptides after the onset of stationary growth phase. Among the overall more than 1500 phosphosites, our approach identifies expected targets and phosphorylation sites, including the protein kinase PrkC, the anti-sigma-F factor antagonist (SpoIIAA), the anti-sigma-B factor antagonist (RsbV) and HPr kinase/phosphorylase (HprK). Analysis of high-confidence phosphosites shows that phosphorylation on serine residues is most common, followed by threonine and tyrosine phosphorylation. This work forms the basis for a further investigation into the contributions of individual kinases to the overall phosphoproteome of C. difficile and the role of phosphorylation in C. difficile physiology and pathogenesis.

Plasmids are ubiquitous in the bacterial world. In many microorganisms, plasmids have been implicated in important aspects of bacterial physiology and…

In this video, Paul Feuerstadt, MD, FACG, AGAF, discussed the annual incidence rate of Clostridioides difficile infection during and in the years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic.In 2011, health care-associated infections, as compared with community-associated infections, accounted for two-thirds of C. difficile infections, Feuerstadt, assistant clinical professor of medicine at Yale University,

In this video, Paul Feuerstadt, MD, FACG, AGAF, spoke about new changes to the American College of Gastroenterology’s guidelines on infection treatment, which were discussed at the ACG Annual Scientific Meeting. Based on the new guidelines, treatment for first-time infection should be chosen based on severity, with non-severe cases categorized as a white blood cell count less than 15,000

The myriad of microorganisms that live happily inside and on our bodies could change the future of human health.

C. difficile RT023 is highly motile and its motility is comparable to the hypervirulent RT027 and its genetic relative RT176.

Clostridioides difficile produces toxins TcdA and TcdB during infection. Since the severity of the illness is directly correlated with the level of toxins produced, researchers have long been interested in the regulation mechanisms of toxin production. The advent of new genetics and mutagenesis tech …

The autoinducing peptide-based Agr system in Clostridioides difficile is involved in virulence factor expression, motility, and sporulation. This review highlights several of the recent discoveries regarding C. difficile Agr. Typical Agr systems rely on the combined activities of four proteins invol …

Plasmids are ubiquitous in the bacterial world. In many microorganisms, plasmids have been implicated in important aspects of bacterial physiology and contribute to horizontal gene transfer. In contrast, knowledge on plasmids of the enteropathogen Clostridioides difficile is limited, and there appea …

Clostridioides difficile is the leading cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and is capable of causing severe symptoms, such as pseudomembranous colitis and toxic megacolon. An unusual feature of C. difficile is the distinctive production of high levels of the antimicrobial compound …

Approximately 10% of all U.S. patients report having an allergic reaction to a penicillin class antibiotic in their past. 10% of the population reports a penicillin allergy but 1% of the whole population is truly allergic.

Background Chronic immunosuppression is a known cause of Clostridioides difficile which presents with colon infection. It is associated with increased mortality and morbidity. Our aim is to determin...

Between 2011-2018, hospital admissions for CDI has decreased dramatically.

Pathobionts are opportunistic microbes that emerge as a result of perturbations in the healthy microbiome due to complex interactions of various genetic, exposomal, microbial, and host factors that lead to their selection and expansion. Their proliferations can aggravate inflammatory manifestations, …

Clostridioides difficile is one of the leading causes of healthcare-associated diarrhea, with severity ranging from mild, self-limiting disease, to life-threatening toxic megacolon. C. difficile infection (CDI) pathogenesis is mediated by the TcdA and TcdB toxins. This work aimed to dr …

Our results indicate that procalcitonin level can be a good candidate biomarker for assessing the CDI in IBD patients. Further studies are required to decipher whether procalcitonin can predict CDI therapy or its recurrence.

Background and Objectives: In Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by the infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the clinical manifestations are primarily related to the pulmonary system. Under 10% of cases also develop gastrointestinal ev …

Interview with Seth Walk, Principal Investigator and Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Montana State University

A diagnosis of Clostridioides difficile infection does not instantly require treatment, but new guidelines include recommendations for treatment when warranted.

Excellent overview of #Cdiff in #IBD by @DrJessicaA 🔑 points: 👉🏻IBD pts don’t have typical CDI risk factors. IBD = risk👉🏻Vanco is preferred Rx👉🏻Often requires concomitant immunosuppressive tx 👉🏻Prospective data is reassuring that #FMT is a safe and effective tx #ACG2021 pic.twitter.com/5PsBSwY5m0— Joshua M. Steinberg, MD (@joshsteinbergMD) October 23, 2021

Understanding the principles of colonization resistance of the gut microbiome to the pathogen Clostridioides difficile will enable the design of defined bacterial therapeutics. We investigate the ecological principles of community resistance to C. difficile using a synthetic human gut microbiome. Us …