Distribution of antimicrobial resistance determinants, virulence-associated factors and clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats loci in isolates of Enterococcus faecalis from various settings and genetic lineages.
Enterococcus faecalis represents an important factor of hospital-associated infections (HAIs). The knowledge on its evolution from a commensal to an opportunistic pathogen is still limited; thus, we performed a study to characterise distribution of factors that may contribute to this adaptation. Using a collection obtained from various settings (hospitalised patients, community carriers, animals, fresh food, sewage, water), we investigated differences in antimicrobial susceptibility, distribution of antimicrobial resistance genes, virulence-associated determinants and phenotypes, and CRISPR loci in the context of the clonal relatedness of isolates. Bayesian Analysis of Population Structure revealed the presence of three major groups; two subgroups comprised almost exclusively HAI isolates, belonging to previously proposed enterococcal high-risk clonal complexes (HiRECCs) 6 and 28. Isolates of these two subgroups were significantly enriched in antimicrobial resistance genes, presumably produced a polysaccharide capsule and often carried the aggregation substance asa1; distribution of other virulence-associated genes, such as esp and cyl, formation of a biofilm and gelatinase production were more variable. Moreover, both subgroups showed a low prevalence of CRISPR-Cas 1 and 3 and presence of small CRISPR2 variants. Our study confirms the importance of HiRECCs in the population of E. faecalis and their confinement to the hospital settings.
Department of Molecular Microbiology, National Medicines Institute, 00-725 Warsaw, Poland.
Iwona
I
Gawryszewska
Department of Epidemiology and Clinical Microbiology, National Medicines Institute, 00-725 Warsaw, Poland.
Katarzyna
K
Malinowska
Department of Epidemiology and Clinical Microbiology, National Medicines Institute, 00-725 Warsaw, Poland.
Alicja
A
Kuch
Department of Preclinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 02-776 Warsaw, Poland.
Dorota
D
Chrobak-Chmiel
Industrial and Food Microbiology, Faculty of Food Science, University of Warmia and Mazury, 10-726 Olsztyn, Poland.
Lucja Laniewska-
LL
Trokenheim
Department of Epidemiology and Clinical Microbiology, National Medicines Institute, 00-725 Warsaw, Poland.
Waleria
W
Hryniewicz
Department of Molecular Microbiology, National Medicines Institute, 00-725 Warsaw, Poland.
Ewa
E
Sadowy
D000890:Anti-Infective Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D064112:Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial; D013293:Enterococcus faecalis / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D005516:Food Microbiology; D016908:Gram-Positive Bacterial Infections / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing; D010641:Phenotype; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci; D037521:Virulence Factors / Q000235:genetics*; D014871:Water Microbiology
D000890:Anti-Infective Agents; D037521:Virulence Factors
BAPS; CRISPR; Enterococcus faecalis; high-risk clones; resistance; virulence