Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Malaysia
  • 2 Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Malaysia ; Clinical Microbiology Research Center, Ilam University of Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran
  • 3 Clinical Microbiology Research Center, Ilam University of Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran
  • 4 Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Medical Faculty, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Center, Cheras, 56000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
ScientificWorldJournal, 2014;2014:623174.
PMID: 25147855 DOI: 10.1155/2014/623174

Abstract

Enterococcus, a Gram-positive facultative anaerobic cocci belonging to the lactic acid bacteria of the phylum Firmicutes, is known to be able to resist a wide range of hostile conditions such as different pH levels, high concentration of NaCl (6.5%), and the extended temperatures between 5(°)C and 65(°)C. Despite being the third most common nosocomial pathogen, our understanding on its virulence factors is still poorly understood. The current study was aimed to determine the prevalence of different virulence genes in Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium. For this purpose, 79 clinical isolates of Malaysian enterococci were evaluated for the presence of virulence genes. pilB, fms8, efaAfm, and sgrA genes are prevalent in all clinical isolates. In conclusion, the pathogenicity of E. faecalis and E. faecium could be associated with different virulence factors and these genes are widely distributed among the enterococcal species.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.