C Diff Molecular

Editorial: Role of microbial biofilm in infections

Patients with appendectomy are not at increased risk for developing severe Clostridioides difficile infection or recurrence. Further prospective studies are needed to establish these associations.

Removing the Appendix: Prologue to Severe Clostridioides difficile Infection and Recurrence?

Clostridioides difficile is responsible for substantial morbidity and mortality in antibiotically-treated, hospitalised, elderly patients, in which toxin production correlates with diarrhoeal disease. While the function of these toxins has been studied in detail, the contribution of other factors, i …

Clostridioides difficile is responsible for substantial morbidity and mortality in antibiotically-treated, hospitalised, elderly patients, in which toxin production correlates with diarrhoeal disease. While the function of these toxins has been studied in detail, the contribution of other factors, i …

Taken together, our results indicate a protective role for myeloid PDGFR-α in maintaining gut homeostasis by promoting a protective intestinal microbiota and providing an anti-inflammatory macrophage phenotype.

New research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and collaborators reveals how microorganisms found in our guts can worsen dangerous C. difficile infections.

A bedridden elderly female patient with right hemiparesis was admitted to Siriraj Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand, with acute pyelonephritis. Considering the patient’s history of frequent hospitalization, intravenous meropenem (2 g, every 8 h) was given empirically. An extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia coli isolate was later isolated from her urine, and meropenem was continued for 10 days. The patient responded well; however, 6 days after admission, she developed watery diarrhea. At the time, she was receiving colchicine and senna, which were discontinued; however, the diarrhea did not resolve after 2 days. The patient’s stool was tested and was positive for the Clostridioides difficile tcdB gene using the BD Max platform (Becton, Dickinson, USA). She was thus diagnosed with mild C. difficile infection (CDI) and treated with oral metronidazole (400 mg, every 8 h) for 7 days while continuing meropenem. She responded well to treatment and was later discharged from the hospital without further complications.

In a previous study, we demonstrated that the Clostridioides difficile VirB4-like ATPase forms oligomers in vitro. In the current investigation, to study the observed phenomenon in more detail, we prepared a library of VirB4-derived peptides (delVirB4s) fused to a carrier maltose-binding prot …

Clostridioides difficile infections cause severe symptoms ranging from diarrhea to pseudomembranous colitis due to the secretion of AB-toxins, TcdA and TcdB. Both toxins are taken up into cells through receptor-mediated endocytosis, autoproteolytic processing and translocation of their enzyme …

The contributions of commensal fungi to human health and disease are not well understood. Candida species such as C. albicans and C. glabrata are opportunistic pathogenic fungi and common colonizers of the human intestinal tract. They have been shown to affect the host immune sy …

The gut microbiome is widely analyzed using high-throughput sequencing, such as 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and shotgun metagenomic sequencing (SMS). DNA extraction is known to have a large impact on the metagenomic analyses. The aim of this study was to compare DNA extraction protocols for 16 …

This case report discusses a nine-year-old female that presented with abdominal pain, diarrhea, and weight loss, suggestive of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). She had an older brother previous...

Study showed how Enterococcus fine tunes the environment around C. diff, restricting some nutrients and supplying others, to increase its fitness and virulence.

Gut microbes constitute the main microbiota in the human body, which can regulate biological processes such as immunity, cell proliferation, and differentiation, hence playing a specific function in intestinal diseases. In recent years, gut microbes have become a research hotspot in the pharmaceutic …

CDI increases intestinal permeability and decreases apical abundance of NHE3, SGLT1, and DRA. This combination likely leads to dysfunctional water and solute absorption in the large bowel, causing osmotic diarrhea. These findings provide insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying dia …

This case report discusses a nine-year-old female that presented with abdominal pain, diarrhea, and weight loss, suggestive of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). She had an older brother previous...

Competition among species has therapeutic implications, the authors found.

“A tour de force presentation by @joeyzacks on how #Enterococcus fecaelis uses L-arginine which stimulates #pathogen #cdiff to produce toxins and generates ornithine which enhances #cdiff fitness! #ASMicrobe”

Clostridioides difficile infections begin when its metabolically dormant spores germinate in response to sensing bile acid germinants alongside amino acid and divalent cation co-germinants in the small intestine. While bile acid germinants are essential for C. difficile spore germinati …

The Brief Case: a White-Colony-Producing Clostridioides difficile Ribotype 020 Strain

O-acetylhomoserine sulfhydrylase is one of the key enzymes in biosynthesis of methionine in Clostridioides difficile. The mechanism of γ-substitution reaction of O-acetyl-L-homoserine catalyzed by this enzyme is the least studied among the pyridoxal-5'-phosphate-dependent enzymes involved in metabol …

In the search for a novel therapeutic that targets C. difficile , bile acids have become a viable solution. Epimers of bile acids are particularly attractive as they may provide protection against C. difficile while leaving the indigenous gut microbiota largely unaltered. This study sh …

Clostridioides difficile is a Gram-positive, obligate anaerobic, toxin-producing bacillus that is linked to antibiotic-associated diarrhea. Here, we report the whole-genome sequence of a C. difficile strain isolated from stool from a patient, using next-generation sequencing (MGISEG-2000). De nov …

Scientific Reports - Identification of novel p-cresol inhibitors that reduce Clostridioides difficile’s ability to compete with species of the gut microbiome

Clostridioides difficile (CD) is a sporulating and toxin-producing nosocomial pathogen that opportunistically infects the gut, particularly in patients with depleted microbiota after antibiotic exposure. Metabolically, CD rapidly generates energy and substrates for growth from Stickland ferme …

Clostridioides difficile is easily spread through the production of highly resistant spores. Understanding how spores are formed could yield valuable insight into how the sporulation process can be halted to render spores that are sensitive to cleaning methods. Here, we identify another prote …

Mucins are glycoproteins which can be found in host cell membranes and as a gelatinous surface formed from secreted mucins. Mucosal surfaces in mammals form a barrier to invasive microbes, particularly bacteria, but are a point of attachment for others. Clostridioides difficile is anaerobic b …

Treatment of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is expensive and complex, with a high proportion of patients suffering infection relapse (20-35%), and some having multiple relapses. A healthy, unperturbed gut microbiome provides colonisation resistance against CDI through competition for nutri …