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Updated: Jul 12, 2025

Cefoperazone-treated Mouse Model of Clinically-relevant Clostridium difficile Strain R20291
Published on: December 10, 2016
Gut Microbiota Associated with Clostridioides difficile Carriage in Three Clinical Groups (Inflammatory Bowel
Elisa Martinez1, Sebastien Crevecoeur1, Carine Thirion2
1Food Microbiology Lab, Fundamental and Applied Research for Animals and Health (FARAH), Department of Food Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liege, 4000 Liège, Belgium.
Abstract:
Clostridioides difficile is an anaerobic spore-forming Gram-positive bacterium. C. difficile carriage and 16S rDNA profiling were studied in three clinical groups at three different sampling times: inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients, C. difficile infection (CDI) patients and healthcare workers (HCWs). Diversity analysis was realized in the three clinical groups, the positive and negative C. difficile carriage groups and the three analysis periods. Concerning the three clinical groups, β-diversity tests showed significant differences between them, especially between the HCW group and IBD group and between IBD patients and CDI patients. The Simpson index (evenness) showed a significant difference between two clinical groups (HCWs and IBD). Several genera were significantly different in the IBD patient group (Sutterella, Agathobacter) and in the CDI patient group (Enterococcus, Clostridioides). Concerning the positive and negative C. difficile carriage groups, β-diversity tests showed significant differences. Shannon, Simpson and InvSimpson indexes showed significant differences between the two groups. Several genera had significantly different relative prevalences in the negative group (Agathobacter, Sutterella, Anaerostipes, Oscillospira) and the positive group (Enterococcus, Enterobacteriaceae_ge and Enterobacterales_ge). A microbiota footprint was detected in C. difficile-positive carriers. More experiments are needed to test this microbiota footprint to see its impact on C. difficile infection.
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