Occurrence of virulence factors among human intestinal enterococcal isolates.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of enterococcal virulence factors among human intestinal Enterococcus faecalis strains and to find out whether the pattern differs from that seen in published reports on food and clinical isolates.


RESULTS
The E. faecalis isolates were cultured from human faecal samples obtained from five ulcerative colitis patients in remission phase. The species identification was based on API120 strips and species-specific PCR primers. The isolates were further characterized using the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. The presence of seven different known enterococcal virulence factors among the confirmed E. faecalis isolates were screened using PCR techniques and published primers.


CONCLUSIONS
Among the 35 isolates representing nine different pulsotypes the most frequent virulence factors were cpd (33 isolates), agg (25 isolates), gelE (22 isolates) and esp (15 isolates). No complete sets of genes associated for the production of functional cytolysin were encountered indicating that intestinal enterococci may differ in this respect from clinical strains.


CONCLUSIONS
According to the results, the commensal enterococcal strains appear to differ from clinical isolates in their complement of presumed virulence factors.
Lempiäinen
H
H
Institute of Applied Biotechnology, University of Kuopio, Kuopio, Finland.
Kinnunen
K
K
Mertanen
A
A
von Wright
A
A
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D001644:Bifidobacterium; D003093:Colitis, Ulcerative / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000628:therapy; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D013293:Enterococcus faecalis / Q000235:genetics / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D016908:Gram-Positive Bacterial Infections / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D007422:Intestines / Q000382:microbiology*; D007778:Lactobacillus; D008875:Middle Aged; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D019936:Probiotics / Q000008:administration & dosage; D014774:Virulence; D037521:Virulence Factors / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D037521:Virulence Factors