Clostridium difficile heterogeneously impacts intestinal community architecture but drives stable metabolome responses

Clostridium difficile -associated diarrhoea (CDAD) is caused by C. difficile toxins A and B and represents a serious emerging health problem. Yet, its progression and functional consequences are unclear. We hypothesised that C. difficile can drive major measurable metabolic changes in the gut microbiota and that a relationship with the production or absence of toxins may be established. We tested this hypothesis by performing metabolic profiling on the gut microbiota of patients with C. difficile that produced ( n =6) or did not produce ( n =4) toxins and on non-colonised control patients ( n =6), all of whom were experiencing diarrhoea. We report a statistically significant separation ( P -value