Prairie dog model for antimicrobial agent-induced Clostridium difficile diarrhea

Abstract

We have noted that prairie dogs given cefoxitin develop diarrhea and lose weight yet survive for periods of up to 4 weeks. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that cefoxitin causes Clostridium difficile cecitis in prairie dogs. Six prairie dogs were given a single intramuscular dose of 100 mg of cefoxitin per kg of body weight, and six control animals received saline; both groups were sacrificed 1 week later. Controls had no diarrhea and lost 2% of their body weight, whereas cefoxitin-treated animals had diarrhea (P < 0.001) and lost 16% of their body weight (P < 0.001); one animals died 6 days after cefoxitin challenge. None of the controls yielded C. difficile or had cecal cytotoxin or pseudomembranes detected. Cecal contents from all cefoxitin-treated animals, however, yielded C. difficile (P < 0.01) and had cecal cytotoxin present (P < 0.01). Four of five surviving animals also had cecal pseudomembranes present (P < 0.01). These results demonstrate that in prairie dogs cefoxitin induces C. difficile cecitis. We conclude that the prairie dog is another model for the study of antibiotic-induced diarrhea. The disease in prairie dogs may have a more chronic course than in other animal models of C. difficile-induced diarrhea and may be useful as a model for studying certain aspects of C. difficile-induced diarrhea.