Abstract
Enterococci are a diverse group of Gram-positive, lactic acid bacteria (LAB). They are found in many environments, including fermented foods, in which they could constitute a health threat since they produce biogenic amines, which consumption can lead to intoxication. Moreover, enterococci has also emerged as an important hospital-acquired pathogens via its acquisition of antimicrobial resistance. Bacteriophages possess features that make them optimal biotechnological weapons for controlling bacterial growth in disease and food spoilage contexts. However, no silver bullet bacteriophage exists that can eliminate all the undesirable bacteria in a complex environment. Rather, a combination of phages with different host ranges would be required which implies the need for large collections of diverse phages. This work reports the isolation of several Enterococcus faecalis-infecting bacteriophages from different types of cheese, along with the range of E. faecalis strains of diverse origin (from dairy to clinical environments) they are able to infect. The isolated phages showed a large diversity regarding the number and origin of strains they infect. Some of these phages were subjected to morphological and genomic characterization which confirmed their diversity and showed they belong to different families and genera. The present findings increase the potential arsenal for the bacteriophage-based biocontrol of harmful E. faecalis populations.
Highlights
The enterococci are a diverse group of Gram-positive belonging to the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) group
A total of 60 retail cheese samples from different geographical origin purchased at different markets in Asturias (Spain) and with different technological characteristics were screened for the presence of E. faecalis infecting phages
In the particular case of cheese -one of the foods in which higher concentrations of biogenic amines (BAs) can be found (EFSA, 2011)- the microorganisms responsible of BA accumulation are members of the LAB group (Ladero et al, 2016b), which play an essential role in the fermentation and determination of the organoleptic characteristics of the mature cheese (Beresford and Williams, 2004)
Summary
The enterococci are a diverse group of Gram-positive belonging to the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) group They are found in many environments, including the human gut where they normally exist as commensal microorganisms, over the last 20 years they have emerged as important hospital-acquired pathogens through the acquisition of antimicrobial resistance (Torres et al, 2018). They still play an important role in the production of fermented foods and some strains have even been proposed as probiotics (Foulquie Moreno et al, 2006). They can even survive pasteurization (Ladero et al, 2011)
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