The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifies Clostridioides difficile as an urgent threat to the nation’s health, as it causes 450,000 infections, 15,000 deaths, and 1 billion dollars in excess healthcare costs per year in the United States (1, 2). Most C. difficile infections (CDIs) occur in healthcare settings, where CDI is the most common cause of infectious diarrhea (3). Known and suspected risk factors for CDI include antibiotics, proton pump inhibitors, impaired immune function, advanced age, and diet, all of which are associated with dysbiotic gastrointestinal (GI) microbiomes (4–6). Though most CDIs are associated with antibiotic treatment, 22% of individuals with community-acquired CDI have no recent history of antibiotic use. Factors affecting persistent and recurrent CDIs remain poorly defined (7, 8). Despite the morbidity and mortality caused by C. difficile, up to 15% of healthy adults are asymptomatic carriers of toxigenic C. difficile (9), highlighting the gaps in our understanding of C. difficile.

Commensal Candida albicans enhances the virulence and dissemination of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium.

Carr et al. show how microbial community-scale metabolic models (MCMMs) predict personalized Clostridioides difficile colonization risk and probiotic efficacy. MCMMs reveal key metabolic strategies ex...

Microbial colonization is shaped by a complex network of interactions that influence both commensals and pathogens, including the public-health threat…

Cholera toxin (CT) promotes Vibrio cholerae colonization by altering gut metabolism to favor pathogen growth. We have previously found that CT-induced disease leads to increased concentrations of L-la...

Carr et al. show how microbial community-scale metabolic models (MCMMs) predict personalized Clostridioides difficile colonization risk and probiotic efficacy. MCMMs reveal key metabolic strategies ex...

In this study, we asked whether normalization by host reads alone was sufficient to estimate absolute bacterial biomass directly from stool metagenomic data, without the need for synthetic spike-ins, ...

Clostridioides difficile epidemiology is rapidly evolving, and understanding the factors that contribute to one’s risk of C. difficile infection (CDI) is urgently needed. Based on our observations in ...

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