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Cambridge University Press, Epidemiology and Infection, 14(143), p. 3069-3073

DOI: 10.1017/s0950268815000023

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Rapid spread of Clostridium difficile NAP1/027/ST1 in Chile confirms the emergence of the epidemic strain in Latin America

Journal article published in 2015 by C. Aguayo, R. Flores, S. Lévesque ORCID, P. Araya, S. Ulloa, J. Lagos, J. C. Hormazabal, J. Tognarelli, D. Ibáñez, P. Pidal, O. Duery, B. Olivares, J. Fernández
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

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Abstract

SUMMARYClostridium difficile infection has gained importance in recent years as a result of the rapid spread of epidemic strains, including hypervirulent strains. This study reports the molecular epidemiology of C. difficile obtained from hospitalized patients in Chile. Seven hundred and nineteen isolates of toxigenic C. difficile from 45 hospitals across the country were characterized through toxin profile, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and sequencing of the tcdC gene. In addition, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) ribotyping and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) were performed on a subset of selected strains. PFGE typing of 719 isolates of C. difficile produced 60 PFGE patterns (subtypes). Subtype 1 was predominant (79% of isolates) and related to the hypervirulent strain (NAP1). Subtype 1 showed 73% relatedness with nine other subtypes, which had a similar tcdC deletion. Subtype 1 corresponded to ribotype 027 and ST1. This report shows the wide dissemination of the hypervirulent strain NAP1/027/ST1 in Chile.