Abstract
Enterococci have the dual characteristics of being opportunistic pathogens and promising probiotics. The isolation from patients of CDC PNS-E2, a newly described Enterococcus species Enterococcus sanguinicola, may pose potential hazards. Enterococcus thailandicus from fermented sausage is a senior subjective synonym of E. sanguinicola. In this study, Enterococcus thailandicus TC1 was first isolated in healthy pigs in Tongcheng, China and identified by phenotypic analysis and 16S rRNA-based techniques. To evaluate the strain safety, an approach including virulence factors, antibiotic resistance, and animal experiments was adopted. The results show that cylA, gelE, esp, agg, ace, efaAfm, efaAfs, ptsD genes were undetected, and that the strain was sensitive or poorly resistant to some clinically relevant antibiotics. However, the isolated strain demonstrated β-hemolytic activity in rabbit blood agar plates. Analysis of animal experiments revealed that the isolated strain had no adverse effect on translocation and the internal organ indices, though significant differences in histology (villi height, crypts height) of ileum were observed. The data acquired suggest that E. thailandicus TC1 may be associated with a potential health risk.
Highlights
The enterococci are gram-positive catalase-negative cocci that have gone through sizable changes in systematics in the past few years
TC4, TC5, and TC6 were similar to E. faecalis; TC2 and TC3 were similar to E. faecium; and TC1 was an unknown species of Enterococcus
Recent studies showed that some Enterococcus species have emerged as important pathogens in animal infections with increased mortality [8,9,10], which presents a serious detriment to the farming industry
Summary
The enterococci are gram-positive catalase-negative cocci that have gone through sizable changes in systematics in the past few years. This genus has grown from the 19 species described in 2002 [1] to the 51 species described currently (http://www.bacterio.cict.fr/e/ enterococcus.html). Since the Enterococcus was identified as separate genus [2], several new species have been isolated from clinical samples. Those isolated new species have helped to improve the identification process and have created a greater number of probiotics or opportunistic pathogens [3, 4].
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