Clostridioides difficile, previously Clostrdium difficile, is a major cause of antibiotic-associated enteric disease in humans in hospital settings. Increased incidence of C. difficile infection (CDI) in community settings raises concerns over an alternative source of CDI for humans. The detection of genetically similar and toxigenic C. difficile isolates in companion animals, including asymptomatic pets, suggests the potential role of household pets as a source of community-associated CDI. The close association between companion animals and humans, in addition to the use of similar antibiotics in both species, could provide a selective advantage for the emergence of new C. difficile strains and thus increase the incidental transmission of CDI to humans. Therefore, screening household pets for C. difficile is becoming increasingly important from a public health standpoint and may become a part of routine testing in the future, for the benefit of susceptible or infected individuals within a household. In this review, we analyze available information on prevalence, pathophysiology, epidemiology, and molecular genetics of C. difficile infection, focusing on companion animals and evaluate the risk of pet-borne transmission of CDI as an emerging public health concern. Molecular epidemiological characterization of companion animal C. difficile strains could provide further insights into the interspecies transmission of CDI. The mosaic nature of C. difficile genomes and their susceptibility to horizontal gene transfer may facilitate the inter-mixing of genetic material, which could increase the possibility of the emergence of new community-associated CDI strains. However, detailed genome-wide characterization and comparative genome analysis are warranted to confirm this hypothesis.

艰难梭菌， 之前艰难梭菌，是医院环境中人类抗生素相关肠道疾病的主要原因。发病率增加艰难梭菌社区环境中的感染 (CDI) 引起了人们对人类 CDI 替代来源的担忧。遗传相似性和产毒性的检测艰难梭菌伴侣动物（包括无症状宠物）中的分离株表明家庭宠物作为社区相关 CDI 来源的潜在作用。伴侣动物和人类之间的密切联系，除了在两个物种中使用相似的抗生素之外，还可以为新抗生素的出现提供选择性优势。艰难梭菌菌株，从而增加 CDI 向人类的偶然传播。因此，对家庭宠物进行筛查艰难梭菌从公共卫生的角度来看，它变得越来越重要，并且可能成为未来常规检测的一部分，以造福于家庭中的易感或感染者。在这篇综述中，我们分析了有关流行病、病理生理学、流行病学和分子遗传学的现有信息。艰难梭菌感染，重点关注伴侣动物，并评估宠物传播 CDI 的风险，将其作为一个新兴的公共卫生问题。伴侣动物的分子流行病学特征艰难梭菌菌株可以为 CDI 的种间传播提供进一步的见解。马赛克性质艰难梭菌基因组及其对水平基因转移的敏感性可能会促进遗传物质的混合，这可能会增加新的群落相关 CDI 菌株出现的可能性。然而，需要详细的全基因组表征和比较基因组分析来证实这一假设。