{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,22]],"date-time":"2026-07-22T16:02:16Z","timestamp":1784736136131,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":35,"publisher":"Microbiology Society","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,22]],"date-time":"2026-07-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1784678400000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"School of Dentistry, University of Leeds","award":["N\/A"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["N\/A"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,22]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Introduction.<\/jats:bold>\n                    High rates of recurrent\n                    <jats:italic>Clostridioides difficile<\/jats:italic>\n                    infection (CDI) and environmental contamination are attributed to its ability to form spores. Periodontal diseases are characterized by gingival inflammation, caused by dental plaque accumulation.\n                  <\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Hypothesis.<\/jats:bold>\n                    Periodontal plaque could harbour\n                    <jats:italic>C. difficile<\/jats:italic>\n                    spores, acting as a reservoir for reinfection.\n                  <\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Aim.<\/jats:bold>\n                    Compare the prevalence and abundance of\n                    <jats:italic>C. difficile<\/jats:italic>\n                    in metagenomic sequences of saliva and dental plaque from healthy and periodontal disease patients.\n                  <\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Methodology.<\/jats:bold>\n                    Publicly available metagenomic reads from oral samples of healthy (\n                    <jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>\n                    =80) and periodontitis (\n                    <jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>\n                    =204) patients were analysed for\n                    <jats:italic>C. difficile<\/jats:italic>\n                    presence through an in-house bioinformatic pipeline. Briefly, reads underwent quality control (cutadapt\/fastQC) prior to subsampling of 3\u2009million reads (seqtk). Reads and MEGAHIT-assembled contigs were aligned to a\n                    <jats:italic>C. difficile<\/jats:italic>\n                    reference genome (ASM1888508v1) or a full non-redundant protein DIAMOND database. Outputs were filtered, annotated (Entrez Direct) and top hits identified via National Center for Biotechnology Information\n                    <jats:sc>blast<\/jats:sc>\n                    . Abundance and prevalence were compared between cohorts.\n                  <\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Results.<\/jats:bold>\n                    Low levels of\n                    <jats:italic>C. difficile<\/jats:italic>\n                    sequences were observed, with significantly higher prevalence in periodontitis (7.4%,\n                    <jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>\n                    =15\/204) vs. healthy cohorts (5.0%,\n                    <jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>\n                    =4\/80) (\n                    <jats:italic>P<\/jats:italic>\n                    =0.0087) with reference genome alignment. Using the full non-redundant database, prevalence was also higher in periodontitis (14.2% vs. 3.8%;\n                    <jats:italic>P<\/jats:italic>\n                    =0.012), along with significantly greater average\n                    <jats:italic>C. difficile<\/jats:italic>\n                    sequence counts (0.608 vs. 0.075;\n                    <jats:italic>P<\/jats:italic>\n                    =0.018) and relative abundance (0.00029% vs. 0.0000003%;\n                    <jats:italic>P<\/jats:italic>\n                    =0.009).\n                  <\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Conclusion.<\/jats:bold>\n                    Sequences pertaining to\n                    <jats:italic>C. difficile<\/jats:italic>\n                    were detected in oral samples, with significantly more observed in periodontal disease compared to healthy cohorts. This highlights the possibility for dental plaque to act as a reservoir, potentially contributing to reinfection in CDI patients.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1099\/jmm.0.002188","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,22]],"date-time":"2026-07-22T15:16:44Z","timestamp":1784733404000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Clostridioides difficile in the oral microbiome: an in silico analysis"],"prefix":"10.1099","volume":"75","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0072-9294","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jon J.","family":"Vernon","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jack","family":"Lynch","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, University of Leeds, Leeds, 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