Reclassification of Clostridium difficile as Clostridioides difficile (Hall and O’Toole 1935) Prévot 1938

The recent proposal by Lawson and Rainey (2015) to restrict the genus Clostridium to Clostridium butyricum and related species has ramifications for the members of the genera that fall outside this clade that should not be considered as Clostridium sensu stricto. One such organism of profound medical importance is C. difficile that is a major cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea and mortality in individuals. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequence...