OBJECTIVES With the recent emergence of vancomycin-resistant (VR) Staphylococcus aureus, subsequent to the suggested transfer of the vanA resistance gene from Enterococcus faecalis, we sought to determine risk factors for acquisition of VR E. faecalis and to evaluate the molecular epidemiology of this less-prevalent and less-studied species of VR enterococcus. METHODS We compared clinical iso...

The crisis in antibiotic resistance has resulted in an increasing fear of the emergence of untreatable organisms. Resistance to the glycopeptide antibiotic vancomycin in the enterococci, and the spread of these pathogens throughout the environment, has shown that this scenario is a matter of fact rather than fiction. The basis for vancomycin resistance is the manufacture of the depsipeptide D-A...

Conditions have been optimized for the use of a multiplex PCR for the detection of vancomycin-resistant enterococci in nosocomial surveillance specimens. Seven primer sets targeting the genes vanA, vanB, vanC1, vanC2/C3 Enterococcus faecalis-specific, Enterococcus faecium-specific, and rrs (16S rRNA) were used in one reaction tube. The PCR method developed in the present study is simple and rel...

Occurrence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci and its relationship to the administration of glycopeptide antibiotics (vancomycin, teicoplanin) was described. A total number of 628 strains of the genus Enterococcus was isolated in the Hemato-oncologic Department of the University Hospital in Olomouc in 1997. Seven strains (1.1%) were found to be resistant to vancomycin. Five of them were identi...