Safety assessment and molecular genetic profiling by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and PCR-based techniques of Enterococcus faecium strains of food origin

Enterococcus faecium is authorized as animal probiotic in the European Union, but this species has emerged as an important cause of nosocomial infections in humans. We investigated the safety of 14 potential probiotic E. faecium strains with antimicrobial activity, previously isolated from food, following the guidance proposed by EFSA. All the enterococci were susceptible to ampicillin, and none of them harbored the genes encoding the enterococcal surface protein (esp), putative glycosyl hydrolase (hylEfm), and insertion sequence IS16. The genetic relatedness of these enterococci was determined by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC-PCR), and restriction analysis of amplified 16S rDNA (ARDRA). PFGE analysis of SmaI patterns evidenced four subgroups, whereas RAPD and ERIC-PCR analysis gave nine and eight different subgroups, respectively. ERIC-PCR yielded the highest diversity, followed by RAPD and PFGE, while ARDRA achieved the lowest diversity. In conclusion, we demonstrated the absence of well-known enterococcal virulence markers in a collection of E. faecium strains from food, which renders them safe to be used in the food industry or as probiotics in animal production, and that ERIC-PCR is a reliable tool to be used for molecular genetic profiling of potential probiotic enterococci.Ministerio de Economía y CompetitividadComunidad de MadridEuropean Social FundDepto. de Nutrición y Ciencia de los AlimentosFac. de VeterinariaFALSEpu

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Sección Dptal. de Nutrición y Ciencia de los Alimentos (Veterinaria)Fac. de VeterinariaFALSEsubmitte