Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) have emerged as a major cause of healthcare associated disease, and recent epidemiological evidence also suggests an important role in community-acquired diarrhea. This increase is associated with specific types, especially PCR ribotypes 027 and 078, which are sometimes referred to as "hypervirulent". Over the past years major advances have been made in ou...

Clostridium difficile is a leading cause of nosocomial infections. The major virulence factors of this pathogen are the multi-domain toxins TcdA and TcdB. These toxins contain a cysteine protease domain (CPD) that autoproteolytically releases a cytotoxic effector domain upon binding intracellular inositol hexakisphosphate. Currently, there are no known inhibitors of this protease. Here, we desc...

Clostridium difficile is a pathogen which is responsible for diarrhea and colitis, particularly after treatment with antibiotics. Clinical signs are mainly due to two toxins, TcdA and TcdB. However, the first step of pathogenesis is the colonization process. We evaluated C. difficile surface proteins as vaccine antigens in the hamster model to prevent intestinal colonization. This vaccination i...

Liposomes containing lipids and polydiacetylene (PDA) are hybrid systems encompassing both a fluid phospholipid membrane and a polymer scaffold (PDA). However, the biophysical role of PDA in such liposomes is not well understood. In this report, we studied the effects of photopolymerization of PDA on the stability of lipid-PDA liposomes, and their sensitivity to selected purified toxins and bac...

Infection with Clostridium difficile and subsequent production of toxins A and B may result in C. difficile-associated diarrhoea and pseudomembranous colitis in hospital patients. The effect of four temperate phages, obtained by induction of clinical C. difficile isolates, on toxin production by C. difficile was determined. None of these phages converted a lysogenized non-toxigenic C. difficile...

Clostridium perfringens and C. difficile have been associated with acute and chronic large and small bowel diarrhoea, and acute haemorrhagic diarrhoeal syndrome in dogs. The objective of this study was to investigate by toxin gene profile and PCR-ribotyping the molecular characteristics of 14 C. perfringens and 10 C. difficile isolates from 95 canine faeces (n = 36, diarrhoeic and n = 59, non-d...