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Monday, 26 June 2006 11:51 | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk
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Scientists have discovered why the bacterium responsible for many hospital-acquired infections is so difficult to tackle.
Researchers found that clostridium difficile, which caused more than 44,000 infections in Britain in 2004, can chop and change its genetic structure very easily – enabling it to neutralise attack by antibodies.
C.difficile is particularly difficult to tackle because it can only be treated with two antibiotics, metronidazole and vancomycin, and there is concern that these will soon become ineffective.
The bug, which is now more prevalent and deadly than the MRSA superbug, causes a range of diseases from antibiotic-associated diarrhoea to the life-threatening colon disease pseudomembranous colitis.
The Sanger Institute researchers found that half the genes in C.difficile are absent from four of its bacterial cousins and, unlike its nearest relatives, the bug can readily exchange genes and resistance elements.
Researcher Dr Mohammed Sebaihia said: "The genome of C. difficile is in a state of flux.
"More than 10 per cent of the genome consists of mobile elements - sequences that can move from one organism to another - and this is how it has acquired genes that make it such an effective pathogen.
"It has gained an array of genes that make it resist antibiotics, help it to interact with, and thrive in, the human gut and help it to change its surface.
"This combination gives it a hugely impressive range of resources to help it prosper in humans."
Professor Brendan Wren, who also worked on the study, said that only 40 per cent of genes were shared between the eight different strains of C.difficile analysed.
"Its overall variation is remarkable. The genetic comparison of these strains will help us understand how C. difficile ticks and help to explain how the hypervirulent strains emerged and spread so rapidly."
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