Insight into antimicrobial susceptibility and population structure of contemporary human Enterococcus faecalis isolates from Europe.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate antimicrobial susceptibility and clonal relatedness of Enterococcus faecalis human isolates recovered recently (2006-09) in six European countries.


METHODS
Antimicrobial susceptibility of 386 isolates from Denmark, Germany, Norway, Poland, Spain and The Netherlands, from hospital infections (223 isolates), carriage (82 isolates) and from colonization in the community (81 isolates) was determined by the broth microdilution method. Clonal relatedness of isolates was assessed by multilocus sequence typing.


RESULTS
All isolates were susceptible to benzylpenicillin, ampicillin, linezolid, tigecycline and daptomycin. Non-susceptibility to tetracycline (77.6%), rifampicin (57.3%), ciprofloxacin (51.2%), aminoglycosides (43.3% high-level gentamicin resistance, 40.0% high-level streptomycin resistance) was frequent among hospital isolates, while non-susceptibility to glycopeptides was rare and associated mostly with vanA. Multidrug resistance was found in 59.7% of hospital isolates and 16.1% of community isolates. Isolates were classified into 105 sequence types (STs), of which 21 STs, representing more than half of the collected isolates (53.9%), grouped with 6 large E. faecalis clonal complexes (CCs; CC2, CC16, CC21, CC30, CC40 and CC87). Two of these, CC2 (frequently recovered in Spain and The Netherlands) and CC87 (prevalent in Poland), were found almost exclusively in hospitals and included the highest proportion of multiresistant isolates.


CONCLUSIONS
While hospital-acquired E. faecalis in Europe remains susceptible to ampicillin and glycopeptides, the high prevalence of strains that are highly resistant to aminoglycosides excludes these antibiotics from combination therapies. Genotyping revealed that nosocomial infections by multiresistant E. faecalis are largely caused by only a few hospital-associated clones.
National Medicines Institute, Warsaw, Poland.
Alicja
A
Kuch
Rob J L
RJ
Willems
Guido
G
Werner
Teresa M
TM
Coque
Anette M
AM
Hammerum
Arnfinn
A
Sundsfjord
Ingo
I
Klare
Patricia
P
Ruiz-Garbajosa
Gunnar S
GS
Simonsen
Miranda
M
van Luit-Asbroek
Waleria
W
Hryniewicz
Ewa
E
Sadowy
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D002353:Carrier State / Q000382:microbiology; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D017714:Community-Acquired Infections / Q000382:microbiology; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000382:microbiology; D013293:Enterococcus faecalis / Q000145:classification* / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D005060:Europe; D005838:Genotype; D016908:Gram-Positive Bacterial Infections / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing; D010641:Phenotype
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents