Importance of toxin A, toxin B, and CDT in virulence of an epidemic Clostridium difficile strain.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 23935202.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1093/infdis/jit426 and PMC identifier 3864386.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Clostridium difficile infection is the main cause of healthcare-acquired diarrhea in the developed world. In addition to the main virulence factors toxin A and B, epidemic, PCR Ribotype 027 strains, such as R20291, produce a third toxin, CDT. To develop effective medical countermeasures, it is important to understand the importance of each toxin. Accordingly, we created all possible combinations of isogenic toxin mutants of R20291 and assessed their virulence. We demonstrated that either toxin A or toxin B alone can cause fulminant disease in the hamster infection model and present tantalizing data that C. difficile toxin may also contribute to virulence.
Medical subject headings
- ADP Ribose Transferases
- Bacterial Proteins
- Clostridioides difficile
- Clostridium Infections
- Enterotoxins