What is it about?
Clostridioides difficile is a bacterium that causes diarrhoea and colitis, often after antibiotic use, and is a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. Strains differ genetically, and some types spread more easily or cause more severe disease. We studied 37 C. difficile isolates from Iranian patients that could not be classified with the standard method (PCR ribotyping) and analysed them with multilocus sequence typing (MLST), which reads seven 'housekeeping' genes. We found remarkable diversity: 33 different sequence types, 28 of which had never been described before. ST3 was the most common. Many infections were acquired in the community rather than in hospital, and recurrences were frequent, especially with the more unusual 'singleton' strains, which were also linked to more severe disease.
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Why is it important?
Very little is known about which C. difficile strains circulate in the Middle East. This study adds 28 new sequence types to the global database and shows that Iran hosts a highly heterogeneous C. difficile population, with an important community-acquired component. These data support stronger molecular surveillance to track the spread of strains and to guide infection-control and treatment strategies in the region and worldwide.
Perspectives
Clostridioides difficile has been at the heart of my research for many years. This long-standing collaboration with Abbas Yadegar's group in Tehran, together with colleagues in Tokyo, shows how international teamwork can shed light on regions that are under-represented in global surveillance. Each new strain we describe is a piece of the global puzzle of this pathogen.
Professor Stefano Di Bella
Universita degli Studi di Trieste
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Molecular epidemiology and characterization of Clostridioides difficile isolates by multilocus sequence typing in Iran, Anaerobe, August 2026, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.anaerobe.2026.103076.
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