Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 26, 2025

Cefoperazone-treated Mouse Model of Clinically-relevant Clostridium difficile Strain R20291
Published on: December 10, 2016
Diversity within the species Clostridium butyricum: pan-genome, phylogeny, prophage, carbohydrate utilization, and
Zhangming Pei1,2, Yufei Liu1,2, Zhi Yi1,2
1State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, PR China.
Aims:
Clostridium butyricum has been recognized as a strong candidate for the "next generation of probiotics" due to its beneficial roles on humans. Owing to our current understanding of this species is limited, it is imperative to unveil the genetic variety and biological properties of C. butyricum on sufficient strains.
Methods And Results:
We isolated 53 C. butyricum strains and collected 25 publicly available genomes to comprehensively assess the genomic and phenotypic diversity of this species. Average nucleotide identity and phylogeny suggested that multiple C. butyricum strains might share the same niche. Clostridium butyricum genomes were replete with prophage elements, but the CRISPR-positive strain efficiently inhibited prophage integration. Clostridium butyricum utilizes cellulose, alginate, and soluble starch universally, and shows general resistance to aminoglycoside antibiotics.
Conclusions:
Clostridium butyricum exhibited a broad genetic diversity from the extraordinarily open pan-genome, extremely convergent core genome, and ubiquitous prophages. In carbohydrate utilization and antibiotic resistance, partial genotypes have a certain guiding significance for phenotypes.
Related Concept Videos
Bacterial Phylum Tenericutes
Bacterial Phylum Firmicutes
Genomic DNA in Prokaryotes
Genomic Diversity in Bacteria
Although bacterial genomes are much...
Diversity of Archaea I
Bacterial Phylum Bacteroidota
Modern Molecular Taxonomy

