Strain-Dependent RstA Regulation of Clostridioides difficile Toxin Production and Sporulation

Two critical traits of Clostridioides difficile pathogenesis are toxin production, which causes disease symptoms, and spore formation, which permits survival outside the gastrointestinal tract. The multifunctional regulator RstA promotes sporulation and prevents toxin production in the historical strain 630Δ erm . Here, we show that RstA exhibits stronger effects on these phenotypes in an epidemic isolate, R20291, and additional strain-specific...