Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt Health researchers have developed a promising novel vaccine to treat Clostridioides difficile infections.
Previous vaccine strategies targeted the bacterium’s primary toxins, according to a Feb. 18 system news release. Though this strategy protected against severe infection, it did not reduce the bacterial burden.
Vanderbilt’s approach is administered to the mucosal lining of the colon and provides long-term protection against illness, death, tissue damage and infection recurrence. Animals with C. diff infections at 60 and 200 days after the final vaccine dose were protected against illness and death. They also cleared both vegetative and spore forms of the infection.
The findings were published Feb. 18 in Nature.
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