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Enterococcus

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Molecular Typing in Bacterial Infections, Volume II

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Abstract

The genus Enterococcus is composed by Gram-positive cocci widely distributed in nature, presenting either as harmless commensals or as multifaceted opportunistic pathogens recognized among the leading causes of difficult-to-treat nosocomial infections. Over the last decades, they have emerged as medically important multiple antibiotic-resistant pathogens, especially in the context of healthcare-associated infections, contributing significantly to patient morbidity and mortality, as well as increasing healthcare costs. Several characteristics of the enterococci allow them to persist almost everywhere and acquire resistance to multiple antimicrobial drugs, thus presenting a considerable challenge for infection control. The introduction of molecular typing techniques, including PFGE, MLST, MLVA, and other PCR-based methodologies, and, more recently, MALDI-TOF MS and WGS, has substantially improved the ability to discriminate enterococcal isolates and has provided critical epidemiology insights. Exogenous acquisition of enterococcal strains by direct and indirect contact among patients has been demonstrated, breaking the traditional conception that enterococcal infections were endogenous in nature. Occurrence and dissemination of successful clonal complexes of antimicrobial-resistant Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus faecalis have extensively been documented, particularly among VRE isolates. In addition to epidemiological investigations of human infections, robust molecular typing techniques are now used to trace the dissemination of enterococci in different environments and hosts, and the evolution of multidrug-resistant strains, greatly expanding our understanding of enterococcal epidemiology, population structure, antimicrobial resistance, and virulence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Microbiologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Lúcia M. Teixeira, Adriana R. Faria & Stephanie S. R. Souza

  2. Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Adriana R. Faria

  3. Departamento de Microbiologia, Imunologia e Parasitologia, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Stephanie S. R. Souza & Vânia Lúcia C. Merquior

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  1. Lúcia M. Teixeira
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  2. Adriana R. Faria
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  3. Stephanie S. R. Souza
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  4. Vânia Lúcia C. Merquior
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Correspondence to Lúcia M. Teixeira .

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  1. Instituto Nacional de Controle de, Qualidade em Saude (INCQS), Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (FIOCRUZ), Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Ivano de Filippis

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Teixeira, L.M., Faria, A.R., Souza, S.S.R., Merquior, V.L.C. (2022). Enterococcus . In: de Filippis, I. (eds) Molecular Typing in Bacterial Infections, Volume II. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83217-9_7

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