Prevalence of Clostridium difficile in diarrhoeic and non-diarrhoeic piglets

Clostridium difficile is considered to be an important causative agent of porcine neonatal diarrhoea, having taken over from classic bacteria] pathogens. However, there are currently no clear data concerning the prevalence of this microorganism in piglets, or about its relative distributions among diarrhoeic and non-diarrhoeic animals. In the present study, we analyzed the presence of C. difficile in rectal swabs from 780 piglets from two age groups (newborn and 1-2-month-old pigs) by means of molecular and microbiological procedures. Furthermore DNA was isolated from the bacteria in order to identify toxin A and toxin B genes. C difficile was not found in any of the 239 samples taken from 1- to 2-month-old pigs. Bacteria were, however, recovered from 140 out of 541 newborn piglets (25.9%), including both diarrhoeic and non-diarrhoeic animals, and animals from control farms (free of diarrhoeic animals). Genes for the production of both toxins A and B were identified in 132 of the 140 isolates (A(+)B(+)). Only seven isolates, all from the same farm and from non-diarrhoeic animals, lacked both toxin genes (A(-)B(-)), while one isolate from this same group of animals was A(-)B(+). This study provides the first report comparing the prevalence of C difficile in large numbers of diarrhoeic and non-diarrhoeic animals. There was no clear link between bacterial isolation and neonatal porcine diarrhoea. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.