Integrated Meta-omics Reveals a Fungal-associated Bacteriome and Distinct Functional Pathways in Clostridiodes difficile Infection

There has been no prior application of matched metagenomics and meta-transcriptomics in Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) evaluating the role of fungi in CDI or identifying community functions that contribute to the development of this disease. We collected diarrheal stools from inpatients and utilized a tiered sequencing approach to identify enriched bacterial and fungal taxa, using 16S and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, with matched metagenomics and metatranscriptomics performed on a subset of the population. Distinct bacterial and fungal compositions distinguished CDI-positive and -negative patients, with the greatest differentiation between the cohorts observed based on bacterial metatranscriptomics.