Regulation of Clostridioides difficile toxin production

• Published in: Current opinion in microbiology Vol. 65; pp. 95 - 100
• Main Authors: Majumdar, Aritri, Govind, Revathi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2022
• Subjects: Bacterial Proteins - genetics; Bacterial Proteins - metabolism; Bacterial Toxins - genetics; Bacterial Toxins - metabolism; Clostridioides difficile - genetics; Enterotoxins - genetics; Enterotoxins - metabolism
• ISSN: 1369-5274; 1879-0364
• DOI: 10.1016/j.mib.2021.10.018

•Clostridioides difficile produces the toxins TcdA and TcdB, which are directly linked to diease severity.•Toxin gene expression is influenced by a number of positive and negative regulators in response to environmental cues.•Many of the same regulators that govern toxin gene expression also affect sporulation, biofilm formation, and motility.•Our present understanding of toxin gene regulation by various regulators is summarized in this review. Clostridioides difficile produces toxins TcdA and TcdB during infection. Since the severity of the illness is directly correlated with the level of toxins produced, researchers have long been interested in the regulation mechanisms of toxin production. The advent of new genetics and mutagenesis technologies in C. difficile has allowed a slew of new investigations in the last decade, which considerably improved our understanding of this crucial regulatory network. The current body of work shows that the toxin regulatory network overlaps with the regulatory networks of sporulation, motility, and key metabolic pathways. This implies that toxin production is a complicated process initiated by bacteria in response to numerous host factors during infection. We summarize the existing knowledge about the toxin gene regulatory network here.