Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Stare, Barbara Geric
• Delmee, Michel
• Rupnik, Maja

Titel

Variant forms of the binary toxin CDT locus and tcdC gene in Clostridium difficile strains

Ist Teil von

• Journal of medical microbiology, 2007-03, Vol.56 (3), p.329-335

Ort / Verlag

Reading: Soc General Microbiol

Erscheinungsjahr

2007

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• 1 Agricultural Institute of Slovenia, Hacquetova 17, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia 2 Université Catholique de Louvain, Faculté de Médicine, Unité de Microbiologie, Avenue Hippocrate 54 90, B-1200 Brussels, Belgium 3 Institute of Public Health Maribor and University of Maribor, Medical Faculty, Slomskov trg 15, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia Correspondence Maja Rupnik maja.rupnik{at}uni-mb.si Received 6 September 2006 Accepted 6 November 2006 Variability in the genes for toxin A, toxin B and other pathogenicity locus regions is well known and is the basis for the distribution of Clostridium difficile strains into variant toxinotypes. Previous data have indicated that some C. difficile strains have a non-functional truncated form of the binary toxin (CDT) locus. This study analysed variability in the CDT locus and the presence of deleted tcdC genes in C. difficile strains. A total of 146 strains were screened, including known variant toxinotypes and non-variant A + B + (toxinotype 0) and A – B – C. difficile strains. In all of the strains studied, only two forms of the CDT locus were found: a full-length 4.3 kb fragment encoding the functional binary toxin or a truncated 2.3 kb fragment. Whilst the full-length CDT locus was found almost exclusively in variant toxinotypes, the truncated form was detected in 79 % of toxinotype 0 strains. Non-toxinogenic A – B – strains with a truncated version were not found and only rarely possessed the full-length CDT locus (A – B – CDT + strains). Four different forms of the tcdC gene were found; three represented deleted versions and typically were found in toxinotypes III–VII, XI, XIV–XVI and XXIV. Abbreviations: LCT, large clostridial toxin; PaLoc, pathogenicity locus; TcdA, toxin A; TcdB, toxin B.