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Updated: Jun 19, 2026

Isolation and Identification of Waterborne Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria and Molecular Characterization of their Antibiotic Resistance Genes
Published on: March 3, 2023
Molecular epidemiology of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis among patients of transplantology wards
W Grzybowska1, A Mlynarczyk, A Mrowka
1Department of Antibiotics and Microbiology, National Medicines Institute, Warsaw, Poland.
Objective:
Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) require epidemiological monitoring especially in transplantation wards. The aim of our work was to perform a molecular analysis of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis (VREfl) strains among solid organ recipients during various years.
Materials And Methods:
Strains were examined for the presence of different genes determining vancomycin resistance: vanA, vanB, vanD, or vanG by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP)-pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was performed on bacterial DNA digested with SmaI enzyme.
Results:
From 2003 to 2006, we isolated 12 strains of VREfl from 8 patients (2 liver and 6 kidney transplantations). All strains harbored the vanA gene. Among the strains, 5 displayed patterns similar to each other, despite being isolated from different patients, and were susceptible to ampicillin with high resistance to aminoglycosides.
Conclusions:
These results suggested that a single strain of VREfl was present for 3 years in closely related hospital wards, but it disappeared in the following years.
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