Molecular Characterization Of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus faecalis Among Inpatients At Iranian University Hospitals: Clonal Dissemination Of ST6 And ST422

• Published in: Infection and drug resistance 2019-09, Vol.12, p.3039-3047
• Main Authors: Zalipour, Mehrdad, Esfahani, Bahram Nasr, Halaji, Mehrdad, Azimian, Amir, Havaei, Seyed Asghar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis; Antibacterial agents; Antibiotics; Antimicrobial agents; Biodiversity; Cloning; Colonization; Dehydrogenases; Drug resistance; Enterococcus faecalis; Epidemiology; Genes; Genetic analysis; Genetic aspects; Genetic diversity; Health aspects; Hospital patients; Hospitals; Hyaluronidase; Infection; Iran; Laboratories; Methicillin; Methods; Microbial drug resistance; Multilocus sequence typing; Nosocomial infections; Opportunist infection; Original Research; Patients; Prevalence studies (Epidemiology); Proteins; Public health; Staphylococcus infections; Strains (organisms); Studies; Urinary tract diseases; Urinary tract infections; Urogenital system; Vancomycin; Vancomycin resistant; Virulence (Microbiology); Virulence Factors
• ISSN: 1178-6973; 1178-6973
• DOI: 10.2147/IDR.S217718

Over the past two decades, enterococci have emerged as an important opportunistic pathogen causing life-threatening infections in hospitals. The purpose of the present study was to examine the prevalence of genes encoding virulence factor and molecular characterization of vancomycin-resistant strains isolated from hospitalized patients in Isfahan, the central city of Iran. A total of 53 vancomycin-resistant isolates (VRE) obtained from clinical samples of hospitalized patients were characterized by phenotypic and genotypic methods, and 25 selected VRE isolates from internal and ICU wards were typed by multilocus sequence typing. The was the most prevalent virulence gene (100%) among isolates, followed by (92.45%), (90.56%), (86.79%), (75.47%), (39.62%), and (18.86%). More than 80% of the isolates were HLGR. Multilocus sequence typing showed eight different sequence types including ST6, ST422, ST28, ST448, ST531, ST328, ST421, and ST495. STs were grouped into two clonal complex (CC) including CCA (ST6, ST422, ST448, ST531) and CCF (ST28, ST421) and two singletons (ST328, ST495). Our data indicated a high prevalence of virulence genes among STs described in this study. In addition, the molecular analysis demonstrated a relatively high genetic diversity among selected VRE strains from the ICU in comparison with the internal ward. Therefore, in order to prevent the colonization of virulent strains in the hospital environment, infection control procedures should be performed.