Linked mutations within the pathogenicity locus of increase virulence.

Background: The clinical manifestations of infections range from diarrhoea to pseudomembranous colitis (PMC) and death. We evaluated the association between gene content in clinical isolates and disease severity.

Methods: Fifty-three isolates were subjected to Sanger sequencing, clinical data were used to analyse the association of gene content with disease severity, and 83 non-duplicate isolates were collected to confirm the results.

Cell surface-anchored syndecan-1 ameliorates intestinal inflammation and neutrophil transmigration in ulcerative colitis.

Syndecan-1 (SDC1), with a variable ectodomain carrying heparan sulphate (HS) chains between different Syndecans, participates in many steps of inflammatory responses. In the process of proteolysis, the HS chains of the complete extracellular domain can be shed from the cell surface, by which they can mediate most of SDC1's function. However, the exact impact on SDC1 which anchored on the cell surface has not been clearly reported.

Clostridium Difficile Infection Worsen Outcome of Hospitalized Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

The prevalence of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) in patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has increased rapidly over the past several decades in North America and Europe. However, the exact global epidemiology remains unclear because of insufficient data from developing countries. A total of 646 hospitalized adult IBD patients were enrolled; and their fresh stool specimens were obtained and used for Clostridium difficile detection.