A Highly Specific Holin-Mediated Mechanism Facilitates the Secretion of Lethal Toxin TcsL in .

Protein secretion is generally mediated by a series of distinct pathways in bacteria. Recently, evidence of a novel bacterial secretion pathway involving a bacteriophage-related protein has emerged. TcdE, a holin-like protein encoded by toxigenic isolates of , mediates the release of the large clostridial glucosylating toxins (LCGTs), TcdA and TcdB, and TpeL from uses another holin-like protein, TpeE, for its secretion; however, it is not yet known if TcdE or TpeE secretion is specific to these proteins.

Repurposing auranofin as a Clostridioides difficile therapeutic.

Background: Clostridioides difficile (previously Clostridium difficile) is the leading cause of nosocomial, antibiotic-associated diarrhoea worldwide. Currently, the gold standard of treatment for C. difficile infection (CDI) is vancomycin or metronidazole, although these antibiotics also perturb the protective resident microbiota, often resulting in disease relapse.

Virulence Plasmids of the Pathogenic Clostridia.

The clostridia cause a spectrum of diseases in humans and animals ranging from life-threatening tetanus and botulism, uterine infections, histotoxic infections and enteric diseases, including antibiotic-associated diarrhea, and food poisoning. The symptoms of all these diseases are the result of potent protein toxins produced by these organisms. These toxins are diverse, ranging from a multitude of pore-forming toxins to phospholipases, metalloproteases, ADP-ribosyltransferases and large glycosyltransferases.

Paeniclostridium sordellii and Clostridioides difficile encode similar and clinically relevant tetracycline resistance loci in diverse genomic locations.

Background: With the current rise of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, it is important to monitor the efficacy of antimicrobials in clinical use. Paeniclostridium sordellii (previously Clostridium sordellii) is a bacterial pathogen that causes human uterine infection after spontaneous or medically induced abortion, for which mortality rates approach 100%. Prophylactic antibiotics have been recommended for individuals undergoing medically-induced abortion, one of which is doxycycline, a member of the tetracycline antibiotic family.

pCP13, a representative of a new family of conjugative toxin plasmids in Clostridium perfringens.

Conjugative transfer is a major contributor to the dissemination of antibiotic resistance and virulence genes in the human and animal pathogen, Clostridium perfringens. The C. perfringens plasmid pCW3 is the archetype of an extensive family of highly related conjugative toxin and antibiotic resistance plasmids found in this bacterium.

Pathogenicity Locus Plasmid pCS1-1 Encodes a Novel Clostridial Conjugation Locus.

A major virulence factor in -mediated infection is the toxin TcsL, which is encoded within a region of the genome called the pathogenicity locus (PaLoc). isolates carry the PaLoc on the pCS1 family of plasmids, of which there are four characterized members. Here, we determined the potential mobility of pCS1 plasmids and characterized a fifth unique pCS1 member.