Nationwide surveillance study of Clostridium difficile in Australian neonatal pigs shows high prevalence and heterogeneity of PCR ribotypes

Knight, D.R.ORCID: 0000-0002-9480-4733, Squire, M.M. and Riley, T.V. (2015) Nationwide surveillance study of Clostridium difficile in Australian neonatal pigs shows high prevalence and heterogeneity of PCR ribotypes. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 81 (1). pp. 119-123.

Abstract

Clostridium difficile is an important enteric pathogen of humans and the cause of diarrhea and enteritis in neonatal pigs. Outside Australia, prevalence in piglets can be up to 73%, with a single PCR ribotype (RT), 078, predominating. We investigated the prevalence and genotype of C. difficile in Australian pig herds. Rectal swabs (n=229) were collected from piglets aged < 7 days from 21 farms across Australia. Selective culture for C. difficile was performed and isolates characterized by PCR for toxin genes and PCR ribotyping. C. difficile was isolated from 52% of samples by direct culture on chromogenic agar and 67% by enrichment culture (P=0.001). No association between C. difficile recovery or genotype and diarrheic status of either farm or piglets was found. The majority (87%; 130/154) of isolates were toxigenic. Typing revealed 23 different RTs, several of which are known to cause disease in humans, including RT014, which was isolated most commonly (23%; 36/154). RT078 was not detected. This study shows that colonization of Australian neonatal piglets with C. difficile is widespread in the herds sampled.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publisher:	American Society for Microbiology
Copyright:	© 2015, American Society for Microbiology.
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/33591

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