Abstract
Clostridium difficile is one of the most important human and animal pathogens. However, the bacterium is ubiquitous and can be isolated from various sources. Here we report the prevalence and characterization of C. difficile in less studied environmental samples, puddle water (n = 104) and soil (n = 79). C. difficile was detected in 14.4% of puddle water and in 36.7% of soil samples. Environmental strains displayed antimicrobial resistance patterns comparable to already published data of human and animal isolates. A total of 480 isolates were grouped into 34 different PCR ribotypes. More than half of these (52.9%; 18 of 34) were already described in humans or animals. However, 14 PCR ribotypes were new in our PCR ribotype library and all but one were non-toxigenic. The multilocus sequence analysis of these new PCR ribotypes revealed that non-toxigenic environmental isolates are phylogenetically distinct and belong to three highly divergent clades, two of which have not been described before. Our data suggest that environment is a potential reservoir of genetically diverse population of C. difficile.
Highlights
Clostridium difficile is an important nosocomial pathogen that causes antibiotic-associated diarrhea and pseudomembranous colitis [1,2] and presence of C. difficile is well documented in hospitalized patients and hospital environment
The remaining 22 profiles could not be assigned PCR ribotype based on our library having 71 Cardiff/Leeds reference strains and were given an in-house designation
The ubiquity of C. difficile is well known, but the studies describing its presence in water and soil are not numerous, and only a few of them include molecular characterization of strains and antibiotic resistances
Summary
Clostridium difficile is an important nosocomial pathogen that causes antibiotic-associated diarrhea and pseudomembranous colitis [1,2] and presence of C. difficile is well documented in hospitalized patients and hospital environment. C. difficile is ubiquitous due to the ability of forming oxygen resistant spores and has been reported from food, water, soil or households [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. Different water sources, such as rivers, sea, lakes, inland drainage, swimming pools, wastewater treatment plants and tap water were positive for C. difficile [3,8,9,10,11,12]. Soil is less studied environment, but C. difficile was reported from rural and urban areas [3,9,13,14]
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