title: Antimicrobial resistance profiles of dairy and clinical isolates and type strains of enterococci.
abstract: The susceptibility to 30 antimicrobial agents was determined by the disk diffusion method for a collection of 172 enterococcal strains, including 96 isolates from dairy sources, 50 isolates of human and veterinary origin, and 26 reference strains from 24 different enterococcal species. Results were analysed by hierarchic numerical methods to cluster strains and to group antimicrobials according to similarity profiles. Resistance to 17 of the 30 antimicrobials showed to be correlated, leading to four groups reflecting the mode of action: quinolones (ofloxacin, enrofloxacin, ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin); macrolides (erythromycin, spiramycin), phenicols (cloramphenicol) and tetracyclins (tetracycline, oxytetracyclin); aminoglycosides (gentamicin, kanamycin) and lincosamides (clindamycin); penicillins (amoxicillin, ampicillin, penicillin G, piperacillin) and carbapenems (imipenem). Overall, the genus Enterococcus behaved as resistant to lincomycin, colistin, polimixin B and, with a few exceptions in dairy isolates, to methicillin. In general, all isolates were susceptible to vancomycin, cloramphenicol and fusidic acid. Clusters containing only dairy isolates were susceptible to the majority of antimicrobials tested, as opposed to clusters constituted only by clinical enterococcal isolates. Among the clinical isolates, 62% were highly multiresistant. Low level gentamicin resistance was found to be associated with clinical enterococci. Among dairy isolates, those that clustered with clinical isolates were both resistant to gentamicin and identified as Enterococcus faecalis. Resistance to macrolides, quinolones, penicillins and imipenem was found to be associated also with clinical environments, mainly with multiresistant isolates, contrary to what is generally agreed as a characteristic of the genus. Veterinary clinical isolates were mainly grouped with the multiresistant clinical human isolates. The 26 reference enterococcal strains were distributed in clusters with different antibiotic resistance profiles and were mainly clustered with dairy isolates.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnológica/Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Apartado 12, 2781-901 Oeiras, Portugal.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: de Fátima Silva Lopes
authors.forename: Tânia
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ribeiro
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abrantes
authors.forename: José Joaquim
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Figueiredo Marques
authors.forename: Rogério
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tenreiro
authors.forename: Maria Teresa Barreto
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Crespo
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D003611:Dairy Products / Q000382:microbiology*; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial; D024901:Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial; D016983:Enterococcus / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents