Molecular characterization of Clostridioides difficile by multi-locus sequence typing (MLST): A study from tertiary care center in India

• Published in: Anaerobe 2022-06, Vol.75, p.102545-102545, Article 102545
• Main Authors: Chaudhry, Rama, Sharma, Nidhi, Bahadur, Tej, Khullar, Swati, Agarwal, Sonu Kumari, Gahlowt, Abhipray, Gupta, Nitin, Kumar, Lalit, Kabra, Sushil Kumar, Dey, Aparajit B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: AAD; C. difficile; MLST; PCR
• ISSN: 1075-9964; 1095-8274
• DOI: 10.1016/j.anaerobe.2022.102545

Clostridioides difficile is an important pathogen responsible for antibiotic-associated diarrhoea (AAD). This study was aimed to perform multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) of C. difficile isolates from AAD cases and to understand the clonal relationship between these C. difficile strains. Thirty five strains and a standard strain C.difficile ATCC 9689 were characterized by polymerase chain reaction assay (PCR) for toxin genes (tcdA and tcdB gene) detection and MLST. MLST results revealed that the most common sequence types were ST-17, ST-54, ST-63. The cluster analysis revealed that strains isolated from AAD patients generated 12 MLST sequence types grouped into two distinct evolutionary lineages. ST 17 is most prominent sequence type. This is the first report of MLST based study of C. difficile from India. Further studies from diverse geographical regions can help better understand the epidemiology of CDI in India. •ST-17, ST-54, ST-63 were the most common sequence types in our study from India.•The isolated strains belong to clade 1 and clade 4.•Sequence types ST-37 and ST-552 were also identified.