Fecal mycobiota markers may help distinguish CDI vs carrier patients
A study published in Gastroenterology highlights specific markers of stool fungi combined with host immune factors to differentiate Clostridioides difficile infected patients from carrier patients.
“It remains a challenge to distinguish a symptomatic patient with CDI from a colonized patient with diarrhea from another cause,” Xinhua Chen, PhD, told Healio Gastroenterology. “Our current study demonstrated certain components of fecal mycobiota, at time of diagnosis, may differentiate CDI from carrier. More studies are needed to explore the clinical feasibility using fungal markers for CDI diagnosis and to better understand the role of fungi in CDI pathogenesis.”
Chen and colleagues collected stool samples from 118 hospital patients. Next they divided patients into three groups: CDI (n = 58), asymptomatic carriers (n = 28) and control participants (n = 32). Researchers assessed fungal composition with nuclear ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer 2 sequenced with the Illumina HiSeq platform. They also performed downstream statistical analysis.
Investigators observed differences in the alpha and beta diversity between patients with CDI and carriers (P < .05).
“Differential abundance analysis identified two genera (Cladosporium and Aspergillus) enriched in [carriers],” the researchers wrote. “The ratio of Ascomycota to Basidiomycota was dramatically higher in CDI patients than in [carrier and control participants] (P < .05).”
According to researchers, CDI patients had weaker associations between host immune factors and mycobiota features than carrier participants. They concluded that very high performance in distinguishing CDI patients from carriers may be achieved with four fungal operational taxonomic units combined with six host immune markers from the random forest classifier.
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