Characterization ofClostridium difficileIsolates from Human Fecal Samples and Retail Meat from Pennsylvania

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the prevalence of Clostridium difficile and characterize C. difficile isolates from human stool and retail grocery meat samples. Human stool samples (n=317) were obtained from a clinical laboratory and meat samples (n=303) were collected from 8 retail grocery stores from October 2011 through September 2012 from Centre County of Pennsylvania and were examined for C. difficile. C. difficile was isolated from 16.7% of stool samples (n=317) and 6.9%, 11.5%, 14.5%, and 7.8% of beef (n=72), pork (n=78), turkey (n=76), and chicken (n=77) samples, respectively. Six different toxin gene profiles were detected in all human and meat isolates of C. difficile based on the presence or absence of toxin genes tcdA, tcdB, and cdtA and cdtB. Interestingly, 75.6% of the human C. difficile isolates lacked any deletion in the tcdC gene (139-bp), whereas a 39-bp deletion was observed in 61.3% of the C. difficile strains isolated from meat samples. C. difficile from meat samples were more susceptible to clindamycin, moxifloxacin, vancomycin, and metronidazole than C. difficile isolates from human samples. Twenty-five different ribotypes were identified in human and meat C. difficile isolates. In conclusion, significant genotypic and phenotypic differences were observed between human and meat isolates of C. difficile; however, a few C. difficile isolates from meat-in particular ribotypes 078, PA01, PA05, PA16, and PA22 with unique profiles (toxin gene, tcdC gene size and antimicrobial resistance profiles)-were similar to human C. difficile isolates.

Global and Historical Distribution ofClostridioides difficilein the Human Diet (1981-2019): Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 21886 Samples Reveal Sources of Heterogeneity, High-Risk Foods, and Unexpected Higher Prevalence Towards the Tropic

“…PRISMA selection of studies reporting 'C difficile prevalence in foods' included in this meta-analysis. The final dataset includes data from 232 food item sample sets reported in studies (Table 1 and Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the distribution of studies conducted in America, 1-5, 7-30, 79-84 , Europe, [31][32][33][34][35][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] Asia, [54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67]70 Africa, [71][72][73][74][75][76] and Oceania, 77,78,…”

“…Fekety 42 (1981)* a Rodriguez-Palacios 6 (2007)* f (2009)* g Songer 43 (2009) Weese 44 (2009) Metcalf 128 2010Metcalf 46 2010Weese 47 2010Koo 55 (2010) Harvey 49 2011Harvey 50 2011Metcalf 51 2011Visser 52 2012Limbago 35 2012Curry 53 (2012) Houser 54 2012Laino 56 2012Sepulveda 41,59 2013Kalchayanand 34 2013Norman 60 (2014) Rodriguez-Palacios 18 2014Varsheney 61 2014Montazeri 62 2015Mooyotuu 63 2015Kwon 64 2016Rodriguez-Palacios 65 2016Han 39,40 2016Rodriguez-Palacios 66 2017Han 39,…”

Investigation of Clostridium difficile interspecies relatedness using multilocus sequence typing, multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis and antimicrobial susceptibility testing

“…Furthermore, for PCR-ribotype 078 MLVA showed a higher genetic association between pig and cattle C. difficile isolates (STRD ≤ 6) than between animal and human isolates (STRD ≥ 20). Varshney et al (2014) observed significant genotypic and phenotypic differences between meat and human isolates for a variety of PCR-ribotypes, while a few meat isolates (including PCR-ribotype 078) were very similar to human C. difficile strains. It has been suggested that relatedness between human and animal isolates of PCRribotype 078 is a consequence of less natural variability in this type than in other types (Bakker et al, 2010).…”

Clostridium difficile Infection in Production Animals and Avian Species: A Review

“…The majority of research about C. difficile in food has been conducted on meat and meat by-products, particularly, beef, poultry, and pork (Songer et al, 2009;Weese et al, 2010a;Rahimi et al, 2014;Varshney et al, 2014). In these studies, the prevalence of strains of C. difficile associated with illness in hospitalized patients varied from high, predominantly in North America, to lower figures, usually in Europe.…”

“…In North America (Varshney et al, 2014) and elsewhere (Rahimi et al, 2014), the most prevalent C. difficile strain detected in meat is RT 078, although earlier studies highlighted significant levels of RT 027 (Rodriguez-Palacios et al, 2007a;Marsh et al, 2011). In Australia, harvesting meat from neonatal animals has been identified as a potential risk for community-associated CDI .…”