Novel Drivers of Virulence in Clostridioides difficile Identified via Context-Specific Metabolic Network Analysis.

ABSTRACT: The pathogen Clostridioides difficile causes toxin-mediated diarrhea and is the leading cause of hospital-acquired infection in the United States. Due to growing antibiotic resistance and recurrent infection, targeting C. difficile metabolism presents a new approach to combat this infection. Genome-scale metabolic network reconstructions (GENREs) have been used to identify therapeutic targets and uncover properties that determine cellular behaviors. Thus, we constructed C. difficile GENREs for a hypervirulent isolate (strain [str.] R20291) and a historic strain (str. 630), validating both with in vitro and in vivo data sets. Growth simulations revealed significant correlations with measured carbon source usage (positive predictive value [PPV] ≥ 92.7%), and single-gene deletio

SUBMITTER: Jenior ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8547418 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature