title: Determination of virulence and multidrug resistance genes with polymerase chain reaction method in vancomycin-sensitive and -resistant enterococci isolated from clinical samples.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Enterococci play an important role in nosocomial infections. Therefore, this study investigates multidrug resistance (MDR)1 gene areas in the pathogenicity of enterococci and virulence genes in both vancomycin-sensitive enterococci (VSE) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) strains.
  
  
  METHODS
  Virulence genes and MDR genes of enterococci were investigated by polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
  
  
  RESULTS
  We evaluated a total of 116 isolates, 93 being VRE and 23 being VSE. In this study, 95.6% of VRE (n = 93) were Enterococcus faecium (n = 89) and 4.3% were E. faecalis (n = 4), while 17.4% of VSE (n = 23) were E. faecium (n = 4) and 82.6% were E. faecalis (n = 19). The vanA MDR1 gene was detected in all VRE isolates. Among virulence genes, esp and hyl were detected in E. faecium, an enterococcus with the highest resistance to vancomycin, and gelE was detected in E. faecalis, an enterococcus with the highest sensitivity to vancomycin. Three or more virulence genes were identified only in VSE strains. We consider that it is a significant result that VSE had more virulence genes than VRE. Only esp was seen in VRE E. faecium strains.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study includes experimental results on the association of virulence characteristics in VRE and VSE strains.
authors: Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Başkent University, Ankara, Turkey.
authors: Şükran
authors: Ş
authors: Saba Çopur
authors: Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey.
authors: Fikret
authors: F
authors: Şahin
authors: Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Başkent University, Ankara, Turkey.
authors: Jülide Sedef
authors: JS
authors: Göçmen
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D024901:Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial; D016983:Enterococcus; D019450:Genes, MDR; D016908:Gram-Positive Bacterial Infections; D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014640:Vancomycin; D014774:Virulence
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D014640:Vancomycin
keywords: Enterococcus faecalis; Enterococcus faecium; vancomycin multidrug resistance genes; virulence genes