Background: Clostridioides difficile is a major cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea and a driver of nosocomial outbreaks, yet rapid, accurate ribotype identification remains challenging. We sought to develop a MALDI-TOF MS-based workflow coupled with machine learning to distinguish epidemic toxigenic ribotypes (RT027 and RT181) from other strains in real time.
Results: We analyzed MALDI-TOF spectra from 379 clinical isolates collected across ten Spanish hospitals and identified seven discriminant biomarker peaks.
Background: Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is a major healthcare challenge that is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Current diagnostic methods are limited in terms of specificity and invasiveness, necessitating novel, non-invasive imaging techniques. In this study, we develop and evaluate an immunoPET radiotracer targeting C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Antimicrob Agents
September 2025
Objectives: Studies regarding the activity of antimicrobials against isolates causing severe infections in oncological and hematological patients are scarce. Ceftolozane-tazobactam (TOL/TAZ) and imipenem-relebactam (IMP/REL) are among the new antimicrobials active against multiresistant gramnegative microorganisms. We evaluate the in vitro activity of these antimicrobials and comparators against recent clinical isolates from hematology and oncology patients in Spain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Gastroenterol
February 2025
Background: Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been associated with poor clinical outcomes. The relationship between biologic therapy and CDI is controversial. We aimed to assess whether biologic therapy increases CDI risk among IBD patients, to identify factors associated with increased CDI risk, and to characterize CDI episodes in our population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is an established treatment for recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). This study aimed to identify calprotectin and microbiome characteristics as potential biomarkers of FMT success.
Methods: We conducted a prospective study of patients who underwent oral FMT (single dose of 4-5 capsules) for recurrent CDI (January 2018 to December 2022).
Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis
February 2025
Purpose: Clostridioides difficile is the main cause of antibiotic related diarrhea and some ribotypes (RT), such as RT027, RT181 or RT078, are considered high risk clones. A fast and reliable approach for C. difficile ribotyping is needed for a correct clinical approach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Cell Infect Microbiol
November 2024
Objective: Our previous genotyping studies suggest that some anatomical locations act as reservoirs of genotypes that may cause further candidemia, since we found identical genotypes in gastrointestinal tract or catheter tip isolates and blood cultures, in contrast, we did not find blood culture genotypes in vagina samples. We observed that some genotypes can be found in blood cultures more frequently than others, some of them being called widespread genotypes because have been found in unrelated patients admitted to different hospitals. The presence of widespread genotypes may be more frequently found because of their predisposition to cause candidemia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Cell Infect Microbiol
July 2024
Introduction: The epidemiological evolution of bloodstream infections (BSIs) in the last decade is not clearly defined. Our aim was to analyze the changes in the workload in our institution and to describe the evolution of the incidence and etiology of BSIs in a 12-year period, including the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: All blood cultures received in the laboratory of a tertiary general hospital between 2010 and 2021 were analyzed.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol
October 2023
Introduction: Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is the main cause of nosocomial diarrhoea in developed countries. Recurrent CDI (R-CDI), which affects 20%-30% of patients and significantly increases hospital stay and associated costs, is a key challenge. The main objective of this study was to explore the role of the microbiome and calprotectin levels as predictive biomarkers of R-CDI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Antifungal susceptibility testing is mostly conducted on blood-cultured Candida spp isolates. Because the intra-abdominal cavity has been highlighted as a hidden echinocandin-resistant C. glabrata reservoir, we assessed whether testing sequential isolates from a given patient might increase the chances of detecting antifungal resistance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: spp., as part of the microbiota, can colonise the gastrointestinal tract. We hypothesised that genotyping spp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: COVID-19 diagnosis lies on the detection of SARS-CoV-2 on nasopharyngeal specimens by RT-PCR. The Xpert-Xpress SARS-CoV-2 assay provides results in less than one hour from specimen reception, which makes it suitable for clinical/epidemiological circumstances that require faster responses. The analysis of a COVID-19 outbreak suspected in the neonatology ward from our institution showed that the Ct values obtained for the targeted genes in the Xpert assay were markedly different within each specimen (N Ct value > 20 cycles above the E Ct value).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Antimicrob Chemother
August 2023
Objectives: To evaluate the impact of time to results (TTR) on the outcome of patients with carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales bloodstream infections (CPE-BSI).
Methods: Times-series study conducted from January 2014 to December 2021, selecting patients with first CPE-BSI episodes. Periods of intervention were defined according to implementation of diagnostic bundle tests in the microbiology laboratory: pre-intervention (January 2014-December 2017) and post-intervention (January 2018-December 2021).
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines consider SARS-CoV-2 reinfection when sequential COVID-19 episodes occur >90 days apart. However, genomic diversity acquired over recent COVID-19 waves could mean previous infection provides insufficient cross-protection. We used genomic analysis to assess the percentage of early reinfections in a sample of 26 patients with 2 COVID-19 episodes separated by 20-45 days.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Cell Infect Microbiol
May 2023
Introduction: infection (CDI) is the main cause of nosocomial diarrhea in developed countries. A key challenge in CDI is the lack of objective methods to ensure more accurate diagnosis, especially when differentiating between true infection and colonization/diarrhea of other causes. The main objective of this study was to explore the role of the microbiome as a predictive biomarker of CDI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
April 2023
Extant terrestrial vertebrates, including birds, have a panoply of symbiotic relationships with many insects and arachnids, such as parasitism or mutualism. Yet, identifying arthropod-vertebrate symbioses in the fossil record has been based largely on indirect evidence; findings of direct association between arthropod guests and dinosaur host remains are exceedingly scarce. Here, we present direct and indirect evidence demonstrating that beetle larvae fed on feathers from an undetermined theropod host (avian or nonavian) 105 million y ago.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the original publication [...
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOpen Forum Infect Dis
February 2023
Background: We aimed to describe the frequency of use and effectiveness of bezlotoxumab (BZX) and fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) in patients with infection (CDI) in real-world practice.
Methods: This was a retrospective study conducted in a university hospital in which adult patients treated with BZX or FMT from January 2018 to April 2021 were included. The primary objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of BZX and FMT in preventing early (within 8 weeks) and late (within 1 year) CDI recurrences (rCDI).
Background: Candidaemia and invasive candidiasis are typically hospital-acquired. Genotyping isolates from patients admitted to different hospitals may be helpful in tracking clones spreading across hospitals, especially those showing antifungal resistance.
Methods: We characterized clusters by studying isolates (, = 1041; , = 354, and , = 125) from blood cultures (53.
Front Biosci (Elite Ed)
August 2022
Background: spp. and spp. are Gram-positive cocci, formerly known as nutritionally variant or deficient .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Med (Lausanne)
August 2022
Information on infection (CDI) in patients with COVID-19 is scarce and points to an overall decrease of episodes during the pandemic. This situation results paradoxical, as COVID-19 patients had long periods of hospital stay and high use of antibiotics. We conducted a retrospective study from January 1st 2019 to December 31st 2020 comparing the incidence of hospital-acquired episodes of CDI (HA-CDI) among patients with and without COVID-19 admitted to our institution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: We prospectively monitored the epidemiology and antifungal susceptibility of Candida spp. from blood cultures and intra-abdominal samples in patients admitted to hospitals in the Madrid area.
Methods: Between 2019 and 2021, we prospectively collected incident isolates [one per species, patient and compartment (blood cultures versus intra-abdominal samples)] from patients admitted to any of 16 hospitals located in Madrid.