Open AccessMicroarray Identification of Clostridium difficile Core Components and Divergent Regions Associated with Host Origin
Author(s) -
Tavan Janvilisri,
Joy Scaria,
Angela Thompson,
Ainsley Nicholson,
Brandi Limbago,
Luis Arroyo,
J. Glenn Songer,
Yrjö T. Gröhn,
Yung-Fu Chang
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of bacteriology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.652
H-Index - 246
eISSN - 1067-8832
pISSN - 0021-9193
DOI - 10.1128/jb.00222-09
Subject(s) - biology , clostridium difficile , genome , genetics , gene , host adaptation , comparative genomics , strain (injury) , microbiology and biotechnology , genomics , anatomy , antibiotics
Clostridium difficile is a gram-positive, spore-forming enteric anaerobe which can infect humans and a wide variety of animal species. Recently, the incidence and severity of humanC. difficile infection has markedly increased. In this study, we evaluated the genomic content of 73C. difficile strains isolated from humans, horses, cattle, and pigs by comparative genomic hybridization with microarrays containing coding sequences fromC. difficile strains 630 and QCD-32g58. The sequenced genome ofC. difficile strain 630 was used as a reference to define a candidate core genome ofC. difficile and to explore correlations between host origins and genetic diversity. Approximately 16% of the genes in strain 630 were highly conserved among all strains, representing the core complement of functional genes definingC. difficile . Absent or divergent genes in the tested strains were distributed across the entireC. difficile 630 genome and across all the predicted functional categories. Interestingly, certain genes were conserved among strains from a specific host species, but divergent in isolates with other host origins. This information provides insight into the genomic changes which might contribute to host adaptation. Due to a high degree of divergence amongC. difficile strains, a core gene list from this study offers the first step toward the construction of diagnostic arrays forC. difficile .