title: Molecular characterisation of Czech Clostridium difficile isolates collected in 2013-2015.
abstract: Clostridium difficile is a leading nosocomial pathogen and molecular typing is a crucial part of monitoring its occurrence and spread. Over a three-year period (2013-2015), clinical C. difficile isolates from 32 Czech hospitals were collected for molecular characterisation. Of 2201 C. difficile isolates, 177 (8%) were non-toxigenic, 2024 (92%) were toxigenic (tcdA and tcdB) and of these, 677 (33.5%) carried genes for binary toxin production (cdtA, cdtB). Capillary-electrophoresis (CE) ribotyping of the 2201 isolates yielded 166 different CE-ribotyping profiles, of which 53 were represented by at least two isolates for each profile. Of these, 29 CE-ribotyping patterns were common to the Leeds-Leiden C. difficile reference strain library and the WEBRIBO database (83.7% isolates), and 24 patterns were recognized only by the WEBRIBO database (11.2% isolates). Isolates belonging to these 53 CE-ribotyping profiles comprised 94.9% of all isolates. The ten most frequent CE-ribotyping profiles were 176 (n=588, 26.7%), 001 (n=456, 20.7%), 014 (n=176, 8%), 012 (n=127, 5.8%), 017 (n=85, 3.9%), 020 (n=68, 3.1%), 596 (n=55, 2.5%), 002-like (n=45, 2.1%), 010 (n=35, 1.6%) and 078 (n=34, 1.6%). Multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) of seven housekeeping genes performed in one isolate of each of 53 different CE-ribotyping profiles revealed 40 different sequence types (STs). We conclude that molecular characterisation of Czech C. difficile isolates revealed a high diversity of CE-ribotyping profiles; the prevailing RTs were 001 (20.7%) and 176 (027-like, 26.7%).
authors: Department of Medical Microbiology, 2nd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague and Motol University Hospital, Czech Republic; DNA Laboratory, Department of Paediatric Neurology, 2nd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague and Motol University Hospital, Czech Republic. Electronic address: marcela.krutova@seznam.cz.
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Krutova
authors: Department of Medical Microbiology, 2nd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague and Motol University Hospital, Czech Republic.
authors: O
authors: O
authors: Nyc
authors: Department of Medical Microbiology, 2nd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague and Motol University Hospital, Czech Republic.
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Matejkova
authors: Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), Wien, Austria.
authors: F
authors: F
authors: Allerberger
authors: Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Leeds, United Kingdom.
authors: M H
authors: MH
authors: Wilcox
authors: Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors: E J
authors: EJ
authors: Kuijper
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001427:Bacterial Toxins / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016360:Clostridioides difficile / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D003015:Clostridium Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D018153:Czech Republic / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing; D021521:Ribotyping; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D001427:Bacterial Toxins
keywords: Capillary electrophoresis ribotyping; Clostridium difficile; MLST; Molecular typing; Toxin genes; tcdC