Fig. 2: C. difficile and C. bartlettii carriage in the analyzed population at D1 and D6.

Oligotyping revealed diversity within the OTU classified as Clostridium XI wherein reads were divided into C. difficile (green) and C. bartlettii (blue). a Rectal swab samples collected at the time of study enrollment (D1), and ~6 days later at the end of treatment (D6) harbored reads classified as both C. difficile and C. bartlettii. Patients that were defined as C. difficile carriers due to the presence of C. difficile reads after oligotyping showed no clear link to clinical outcome. b Similar carriage rates of the OTU Clostridium XI were identified in patients both at D1 (5.40%, n = 51) and D6 (6.78%, n = 50) with varying relative abundances of C. difficile and C. bartlettii reads as demonstrated in the Circos plot. Patients at D6 generally show higher relative abundance of C. difficile than of C. bartlettii compared to D1. D1: rectal swab sample collected upon study enrollment. D6: rectal swab collected ~6 days after initiation and at the end of antibiotic treatment. AAD: patients with non-C. difficile antibiotic-associated diarrhea. CDI: patients with confirmed C. difficile infection. ND: non-diarrheic patients. NA: patients without known CDI status and/or early study termination. OTU: operational taxonomic unit.