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Understanding C. difficile: from microbes to management

Published on July 30, 2026   41 min

A selection of talks on Microbiology

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0:00
Hello. My name is Anna Seekatz, and I am an Assistant Professor in Biological Sciences at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, in the United States. The research in my lab focuses on microbial interactions in the gastrointestinal tract and how these interactions contribute to health and disease. Today, I will be talking about the pathogen Clostridioides difficile, formerly known as Clostridium difficile, an important healthcare-associated gut pathogen that is of global concern.
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Clostridioides difficile, also called C. difficile, or C. diff, is a gram-positive anaerobic bacterium that is ubiquitous in the environment. Being an anaerobic pathogen, meaning C. diff can only grow in the absence of oxygen, C. diff survives within the aerobic world by forming spores. These spores also act as its primary transmission factor and can be found throughout our environment, probably in more reservoirs than we previously thought, including in animal, food, and environmental sources. While improved infection control measures have drastically decreased healthcare-associated infections by C. difficile, community-acquired infections via these external sources support a one health perspective to survey additional C. difficile risk. The reason C. difficile is a pathogen is because it produces two potent toxins, Toxins A and B, which can cause a range of clinical symptoms upon colonization. Several factors can increase your risk for developing C. difficile infection, including increasing age, antibiotic use, healthcare exposures, where you also might encounter spores. During this talk, I hope to cover C. difficile pathogenesis broadly, including spore germination in the gut, toxin production, as well as disease development, and the role of the microbiota in facilitating these processes.

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Understanding C. difficile: from microbes to management

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