About the Authors

Lovleen Tina Joshi

Affiliation Cardiff School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom

Buddha L. Mali

Affiliation Institute of Fluorescence, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Chris D. Geddes

Affiliation Institute of Fluorescence, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Les Baillie

BaillieL@cardiff.ac.uk

Affiliation Cardiff School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: The probes which the authors have defined within the document for toxins A and B of Clostridium difficile are now undergoing the process of intellectual property protection by Cardiff University (University College Cardiff Consultants Limited). The authors have filed two World Intellectual Property Organisation patents to protect these DNA oligonucleotides and these have been published as: WO2013167876 A1, WO2013167877 A1. These are publicly available and the Inventors are: Leslie William James Baillie (a co-author of this manuscript) and Lovleen Tina Joshi (First Author of this manuscript). This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: LTJ CDG LB. Performed the experiments: LTJ. Analyzed the data: LTJ LB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: LTJ BLM CDG LB. Contributed to the writing of the manuscript: LTJ CDG LB.