Abstract
Clostridioides difficile, a Gram-positive spore-forming anaerobic bacterium, has rapidly emerged as the leading cause of nosocomial diarrhoea in hospitals. The availability of large numbers of genome sequences, mainly due to the use of next-generation sequencing methods, has undoubtedly shown their immense advantages in the determination of C. difficile population structure. The implementation of fine-scale comparative genomic approaches has paved the way for global transmission and recurrence studies, as well as more targeted studies, such as the PaLoc or CRISPR/Cas systems. In this chapter, we provide an overview of recent and significant findings on C. difficile using comparative genomic studies with implications for epidemiology, infection control and understanding of the evolution of C. difficile.
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Acknowledgements
JG was supported by a discovery grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC #341450-2010). SJ was supported by the Slovenian Research Agency (grant number J4-8224).
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Janezic, S., Garneau, J.R., Monot, M. (2024). Comparative Genomics of Clostridioides difficile. In: Mastrantonio, P., Rupnik, M. (eds) Updates on Clostridioides difficile in Europe. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology(), vol 1435. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42108-2_10
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