title: Carriage and acquisition rates of Clostridium difficile in hospitalized horses, including molecular characterization, multilocus sequence typing and antimicrobial susceptibility of bacterial isolates.
abstract: Clostridium difficile has been identified as a significant agent of diarrhoea and enterocolitis in both foals and adult horses. Hospitalization, antibiotic therapy or changes in diet may contribute to the development of C. difficile infection. Horses admitted to a care unit are therefore at greater risk of being colonized. The aim of this study was to investigate the carriage of C. difficile in hospitalized horses and the possible influence of some risk factors in colonization. During a seven-month period, faecal samples and data relating the clinical history of horses admitted to a veterinary teaching hospital were collected. C. difficile isolates were characterized through toxin profiles, cytotoxicity activity, PCR-ribotyping, antimicrobial resistance and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). Ten isolates were obtained with a total of seven different PCR-ribotypes, including PCR-ribotype 014. Five of them were identified as toxinogenic. A high resistance to gentamicin, clindamycin and ceftiofur was found. MLST revealed four different sequencing types (ST), which included ST11, ST26, ST2 and ST15, and phylogenetic analysis showed that most of the isolates clustered in the same lineage. Clinical history suggests that horses frequently harbour toxigenic and non-toxigenic C. difficile and that in most cases they are colonized regardless of the reason for hospitalization; the development of diarrhoea is more unusual.
authors.affiliation: Food Science Department, FARAH, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium. Electronic address: c.rodriguez@ulg.ac.be.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rodriguez
authors.affiliation: Food Science Department, FARAH, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Taminiau
authors.affiliation: Food Science Department, FARAH, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Brévers
authors.affiliation: Microbiology Unit, Catholic University of Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Avesani
authors.affiliation: Microbiology Unit, Catholic University of Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Van Broeck
authors.affiliation: Equine Teaching Hospital, Clinical Department of Companion Animals and Equids, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Leroux
authors.affiliation: Equine Teaching Hospital, Clinical Department of Companion Animals and Equids, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Amory
authors.affiliation: Microbiology Unit, Catholic University of Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Delmée
authors.affiliation: Food Science Department, FARAH, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Daube
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D016360:Clostridioides difficile / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D003015:Clostridium Infections / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000382:microbiology / Q000635:transmission / Q000662:veterinary*; D003967:Diarrhea / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000382:microbiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000662:veterinary*; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology; D005260:Female; D006734:Horse Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000635:transmission; D006736:Horses; D006762:Hospitals, Animal; D008297:Male; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing; D010802:Phylogeny; D021521:Ribotyping
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents
keywords: Clostridium difficile; Hospitalized horses; Multilocus sequence typing