In recent years, the incidence and severity of Clostridium difficile infections has increased.\nAdditionally, resistance of C. difficile to frequently used antibiotics is rising. To improve our\nunderstanding of C. difficile, there is a need for molecular characterization of different strains and\nantibiotic resistance testing. We investigated the efficacy of GenoType CDiff kit (Hain Lifesciences)\nin identification of C. difficile and its various strains in northern Israel. The kit involves a molecular\nassay that detects C. difficile from stool samples or colonies and identifies the different strains and\nmutations in the gyrA gene that cause moxifloxacin resistance. Forty-nine C. difficile positive samples\nwere examined by the kit following DNA extraction from both colonies and stool. The identification\nrate (95.9%) of C. difficile was much higher when DNA was extracted from colonies, compared to\nextraction from stool (46.9%). Low frequencies of ribotype027 strain (2%) and of ribotype078 strain\n(4%) were found. There was a high concordance between genotype (mutation in gyrA) and phenotype\n(Etest) for moxifloxacin resistance (Kappa = 0.72). A high percentage of moxifloxacin-resistant strains\nwas found. Our findings indicate that the GenoType CDiff kit is very effective in characterization of\nC. difficile strains and less effective for identification of C. difficile directly from stool samples.
Loading....