Identifying fecal host biomarkers for the presence and severity of Clostridioides difficile infection using top-down proteomics

Clostridioides difficile is a major cause of healthcare-associated diarrhea in adult patients. Laboratory diagnosis of C. difficile infection (CDI) is challenging as there is no single test combining high sensitivity and specificity, rapid turnaround time and cost efficiency. They also offer no or little correlation with the clinical outcome. Recently, host-based methods have shown satisfactory performance for the diagnosis of infectious diseases. The aim of this study was to discover CDI-specific host biomarkers that correlate with disease stage and severity.

艰难梭菌（Clostridioides difficile）是成人患者医疗相关性腹泻的主要致病原。目前针对艰难梭菌感染（Clostridioides difficile infection, CDI）的实验室诊断颇具挑战：尚无单一检测手段可同时兼顾高灵敏度、高特异性、快速检测周期与成本效益优势，且此类检测方法与临床结局的相关性极弱，甚至无相关性。近年来，基于宿主的检测方法在感染性疾病诊断领域已展现出令人满意的应用性能。本研究旨在筛选可反映疾病分期与严重程度的CDI特异性宿主生物标志物（biomarker）。