New Vaccine Shows Promise in Treating and Preventing C. difficile Infection

According to an Oct. 17 press release, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that a new vaccine may treat and prevent Clostridioides difficile infection (C. difficile or C. diff.).

A press release on the results, which are published in the journal Science, said, “In animal models, this first mRNA-LNP C. difficile vaccine was found to protect against C. difficile first-time infections and relapsing infections by inducing a robust immune response, promote clearance of existing C. diff bacteria from the gut, and even overcome deficits in host immunity to protect animals after infection.”

Further, “C. difficile is a bacterium that can cause infection with symptoms ranging from diarrhea to deadly colon damage. It spreads quickly via its hard-to-kill spores and commonly infects vulnerable populations, including the elderly, children, those taking antibiotics, and often, patients in hospitals or nursing homes. The bug is also persistent: 30 to 40% of those diagnosed with a C. difficile infection will likely get it again.  There are currently no C. difficile vaccines available, and the main treatment for the infection is a lengthy course of antibiotics. However, because antibiotics also target beneficial bacteria in the gut microbiome, C. difficile often takes advantage of their absence, releasing toxins in the colon that allow C. difficile to prosper.”

“Our approach was to create a multivalent mRNA vaccine that would attack multiple aspects of C. diff’s complex lifestyle simultaneously without affecting the normal microbiota,” said co-first author Mohamad-Gabriel Alameh, PhD, an assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Penn and a senior principal scientist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Antibiotics are not always an effective means of successfully treating really tough pathogens like C. diff, and we have only begun to scratch the surface of the full potential of mRNA vaccines for a host of infectious diseases.”

Researchers used the mRNA-LNP vaccine platform, the same platform used for the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Many mRNA vaccines are being studied for viruses, the researchers say that the technology has broader applications than other vaccine designs, like inactivated vaccines.