TY - JOUR AU - Jovanovic, Milica AU - Tosic, Tanja AU - Jovanovic, Snezana AU - Stevanovic, Goran AU - Drakulovic, Mitra AU - Stosovic, Rajica AU - Zervos, Marcus PY - 2017/09/30 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Local spread of Tn1546-like element among three species of vancomycin resistant enterococci in an intensive care unit: Tn1546-like structure in enterococci JF - The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries JA - J Infect Dev Ctries VL - 11 IS - 09 SE - Original Articles DO - 10.3855/jidc.7959 UR - https://jidc.org/index.php/journal/article/view/31600159 SP - 684-690 AB - <p>Introduction: In an intensive care unit (ICU) of the Emergency Center in the Clinical Center of Serbia, four species of vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE) were isolated in a 17-month period mostly from blood cultures, including<em> E. faecalis, E. faecium, E. raffinosus</em> and <em>E.gallinarum.</em></p><p>Methodology: The relationship between isolates from each species was investigated by PFGE, and PCR experiments for detection of pathogenicity factor genes and <em>van</em> genes to determine the nature of each clone. A PCR-based method, using 10 primer pairs (p1/2-p19/20), was used to investigate the presence of the Tn<em>1546-</em>like structure.</p><p>Results: PFGE indicated the presence of two different <em>E. faecium </em>clones, while the three other enterococcal species belonged to one clone each. Transposon typing revealed that isolates of <em>E. raffinosus</em> (4), <em>E. gallinarum</em> (4) and <em>E. faecalis</em> (3) yielded gene sequences identical to 10 primer pairs (p1/2-p19/20), suggesting the possibility of identical transposon-like structure in these species.</p><p>Conclusions: The results of the study indicate probable horizontal spread of Tn<em>1546-</em>like structure in three species of VRE obtained from the same ICU.</p> ER -