Epidemiological profiles and pathogenicity of Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium clinical isolates in Taiwan

Pei-Yun Lin; Shang-Yih Chan; Arnold Stern; Po-Hsiang Chen; Hung-Chi Yang

doi:10.7717/peerj.14859

Epidemiological profiles and pathogenicity of Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium clinical isolates in Taiwan

PeerJ. 2023 Feb 23:11:e14859. doi: 10.7717/peerj.14859. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Pei-Yun Lin¹, Shang-Yih Chan^{2

3

4}, Arnold Stern⁵, Po-Hsiang Chen⁶, Hung-Chi Yang⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Laboratory, Taipei City Hospital, Yang-Ming Branch, Taipei, Taiwan.
² Department of Internal Medicine, Taipei City Hospital, Yang-Ming Branch, Taipei, Taiwan.
³ Department of Exercise and Health Sciences, University of Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Health Care Management, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Grossman School of Medicine, New York University, New York, USA.
⁶ Research Center for Chinese Herbal Medicine, Graduate Institute of Health Industry Technology, College of Human Ecology, Chang Gung University of Science and Technology, Taoyuan, Taiwan.
⁷ Department of Medical Laboratory Science and Biotechnology, Yuanpei University of Medical Technology, Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Abstract

The emerging Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE-fm) is an opportunistic pathogen causing nosocomial infections. The identification of VRE-fm is important for successful prevention and control in healthcare settings. VRE-fm clinical isolates obtained from regional hospitals in northern Taiwan were characterized for antimicrobial susceptibility, virulence genes and biofilm production. Most isolates exhibited multi-drug resistance and carried the virulence genes, esp and hyl. While all isolates produce biofilms, those isolates that carried esp exhibited greater biofilm production. Isolates with different virulence gene carriages were examined for pathogenicity by using a nematode model, Caenorhabditis elegans, for determining microbial-host interactions. The survival assay showed that C. elegans was susceptible to Linezolid-resistant VRE-fm isolates with hyl. Combining the molecular epidemiological profiles regarding pathogenesis in C. elegans can serve as a guide for physicians in limiting opportunistic infections caused by VRE-fm.

Keywords: Biofilm; Caenorhabditis elegans; Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium; Virulence genes.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Caenorhabditis elegans
Enterococcus faecium* / genetics
Taiwan / epidemiology
Vancomycin
Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci* / genetics
Virulence / genetics

Substances

Vancomycin

Grants and funding

This work is mainly supported by a grant from the Department of Health, Taipei City Government (11001-62-031 to Pei-Yun Lin). Support was also received from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan (MOST-109-2320-B-264-001-MY2 to Hung-Chi Yang). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.