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Clostridioides (C.) difficile is a well-known enteric pathogen that can cause diseases in humans and animals. It is ubiquitous and a huge variety of different antibiotic resistance (AR) patterns has been detected.
New World Camelids (NWC) are becoming increasingly popular in Germany, resulting in the creation of a novel human-animal interface. However, until now, there are no data on C. difficile and its characteristics in this animal species.
Aiming at disclosing the presence and molecular characteristics of C. difficile in NWC in Germany, we collected 94 faecal samples from 43 alpaca-/llama-husbandries in 2019. Eight C. difficile isolates could be cultivated, resulting in a prevalence of 16.3% (7/43) at farm-level. All isolates carried the toxin genes A and B, one isolate was also positive for the binary toxin genes. The isolates belonged to different PCR-ribotypes, including one isolate of the potentially zoonotic ribotype RT 078. Phenotypic susceptibility against vancomycin, metronidazole and moxifloxacin was tested for via Etest; two isolates
showed resistance against moxifloxacin. Whole genome sequencing of all isolates led to the detection of different AR genes. Analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms revealed four different clusters in accordance with the results from ribotyping and sequence typing.
This study demonstrates that NWC are capable of harbouring C. difficile and pose a potential risk for zoonotic transmission of this pathogen.