Clostridium Difficile Agar Base (Brazier’s) is used with blood, Cycloserine, and Cefoxitin for the isolation of Clostridium difficile. Clostridium Difficile is not intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions in humans.
Brazier’s CCEY agar is the formulation currently used by the Anaerobe Reference Unit for the isolation of C. difficile, resulting from work initiated by Ken Phillips and Paul Levett, and completed by Jon Brazier. Based upon the market leading anaerobe medium, Fastidious Anaerobe Agar, it incorporates additional ingredients to improve the isolation and differentiation of C. difficile from samples.
Cholic acid is present to promote spore germination following alcohol shock treatment, and p-hydroxyphenylacetic acid to enhance the production of p-cresol, a distinctive metabolite of C. difficile. Selectivity is achieved by addition of supplement X093 (cefoxitin cycloserine) and egg yolk emulsion X075 is added to help differentiate C. difficile from lecithinase positive clostridia. Finally, the addition of lysed horse blood optimizes the recognition of colony fluorescence when cultures are examined using UV light.
