A fingertip-to-fingertip intraindividual transmission experiment was carried out in 30 healthy volunteers, using four MLST-typed Enterococcus faecium clones. Overall results showed an adequate fit goodness to a theoretical exponential model, whereas four volunteers (13%) exhibited a significantly higher finger-to-finger bacterial transmission efficiency. This observation might have deep consequ...

Conventional tests and commercially available systems were used to determine the species identities of clinical isolates of enterococci. Strict adherence to the conventional test scheme of Facklam and Collins (R. R. Facklam and M. D. Collins, J. Clin. Microbiol. 27:731-734, 1989) resulted in the misidentification of lactose-negative Enterococcus faecalis isolates as Enterococcus solitarius, but...

Immunochemical Characterization of Temperature-Regulated Production 1 of Enterocin L50 (EntL50A and EntL50B), Enterocin P, 2 and Enterocin Q by Enterococcus faecium L50 3 4 5 Raquel Criado, Jorge Gutiérrez, María Martín, Carmen Herranz, 6 Pablo E. Hernández, and Luis M. Cintas 7 8 9 10 Departamento de Nutrición, Bromatología y Tecnología de los Alimentos, Facultad de 11 Veterinaria, Universidad...

Clinical enterococcal resistance to linezolid is defined by the presence of the G2576T mutation. We evaluated the incidence of genetically proven linezolid resistance among vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium strains and linezolid consumption for a possible association. A relationship was found (r(2) = 0.73, P = 0.03) and predicts increasing resistance with current trends of linezolid use.

The use of antibiotics in agriculture is routinely described as a major contributor to the clinical problem of resistant disease in human medicine. While a link is plausible, there are no data conclusively showing the magnitude of the threat emerging from agriculture. Here, we define the potential mechanisms by which agricultural antibiotic use could lead to human disease and use case studies t...

Two thousand one hundred and thirteen strains of enterococci isolated at Pisa General Hospital in 1998 were analysed retrospectively to determine their glycopeptide resistance. Of all the microorganisms isolated in this period, 14.7% were enterococci (1405 Enterococcus faecalis, 19 Enterococcus faecium, six Enterococcus avium and 683 Enterococcus spp.). Two hundred and thirty (10.8%) of these e...

We report the draft genome sequence of the bacteriocin producer Enterococcus faecium strain CRL 1879, isolated from a northwestern Argentinian artisanal cheese. The draft genome sequence is composed of 73 contigs for 2,886,747 bp, with 3,140 protein-coding genes. Six biosynthetic clusters for bacteriocin class II production were found. Typical virulence determinants, which have relevance in foo...

Multidrug-resistant Enterococcus faecium has emerged as a nosocomial pathogen that may infect the body at various sites, including the gastrointestinal tract, and has serious implications in human health and disease. Here, we present the draft genome sequence of clinical strain VRE3, which exhibited a sequence type 16 (ST16) pattern and carried truncated Tn1546, a mobile genetic element encodin...

During a study to investigate the evolution of ampicillin resistance in Enterococcus faecium, we observed that a number of E. faecium strains, mainly from the recently described subclade A2, showed PBP5 sequences in between PBP5-S and PBP5-R. These hybrid PBP5-S/R patterns reveal a progression of amino acid changes from the S form to the R form of this protein; however, these changes do not str...

Enterococcus faeciumM3K31 is a bacteriocinogenic lactic acid bacterium (LAB) isolated from griffon vulture (Gyps fulvussubsp.fulvus) feces. The draft genome sequence of this strain provides genetic data that support its biotechnological potential.