Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs), produced by various Clostridium strains, are a family of potent bacterial toxins and potential bioterrorism agents. Here we report that an Enterococcus faecium strain isolated from cow feces carries a BoNT-like toxin, designated BoNT/En. It cleaves both VAMP2 and SNAP-25, proteins that mediate synaptic vesicle exocytosis in neurons, at sites distinct from known Bo...

Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium are common inhabitants of the human gastrointestinal tract, as well as frequent opportunistic pathogens. Enterococci cause a range of infections including, most frequently, infections of the urinary tract, catheterized urinary tract, bloodstream, wounds and surgical sites, and heart valves in endocarditis. Enterococcal infections are often biofilm-...

Fragments (414 bp) of the gene-encoding ribosomal protein L16 from Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus faecalis that were resistant and susceptible to the oligosaccharide antibiotics avilamycin and evernimicin (SCH 27899) were sequenced and compared. The susceptible E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates had sequences that were similar to those of the type strains. All resistant E. faecalis isol...

Twenty-eight quinupristin-dalfopristin-resistant isolates of Enterococcus faecium from hospital patients and nonhuman sources in European countries were studied. High-level resistance (MICs, >/=32 microg/ml) was associated with the presence of vat(E) (satG) (14 isolates ¿50%) or vat(D) (satA) (6 isolates ¿21%). These genes were not detected in eight (29%) isolates with lower levels of quinupris...

VanD-type Enterococcus faecium BM4416 was constitutively resistant to vancomycin and to teicoplanin by synthesis of peptidoglycan precursors ending in D-alanyl-D-lactate. Like E. faecium BM4339, the only VanD-type strain described so far, BM4416 produced an impaired D-alanine:D-alanine ligase. Unlike for BM4339, which had a 5-bp insertion in ddl, inactivation of the gene in BM4416 was due to in...

To determine the prevalence of indicator bacteria resistant to antimicrobials among poultry in three Southeast Asian countries (Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand), we examined the antimicrobial susceptibilities of commensal bacteria isolated from chickens. In total, 125, 117 and 180 isolates of Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium, respectively, were used to test for a...

The complete sequence (1,479 nucleotides) of msrC, part of which was recently reported by others using a different strain, was determined. This gene was found in 233 of 233 isolates of Enterococcus faecium but in none of 265 other enterococci. Disruption of msrC was associated with a two- to eightfold decrease in MICs of erythromycin azithromycin, tylosin, and quinupristin, suggesting that it m...

The ability to colonize patients successfully may be essential for the emergence and spread of resistant nosocomial strains. We determined the presence of Esp, a surface protein involved in colonization ability in Enterococcus faecalis, in 96 Enterococcus faecium isolates from hospitalized patients (77 PFGE clones), 33 faecal isolates from healthy volunteers (32 clones) and 20 environmental iso...

Goat milk has become a popular item of human consumption due to its originality. Enterococci are ubiquitous bacteria, and they can also be found in traditional dairy products. This study focuses on the safety enterococci from Slovak raw goat their susceptibility lantibiotic bacteriocins durancin ED26E/7, which not previously been studied. Biofilm formation ability enterococci, virulence factor ...

In this study the distribution of species and antimicrobial resistance among vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE) recovered from clinical specimens obtained from five hospitals in Belgrade was analyzed. Strains were further characterized by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to investigate the presence of vanA and vanB genes and pathogenicity fac...