Development and Evaluation of a Novel, Semiautomated Clostridium difficile Typing Platform

We describe a novel, semiautomated Clostridium difficile typing platform that is based on PCR-ribotyping in conjunction with a semiautomated molecular typing system. The platform is reproducible with minimal intra- or interassay variability. This method exhibited a discriminatory index of 0.954 and is therefore comparable to more arduous typing systems, such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis.