What Is Wrong with Enterococcal Probiotics?

Enterococci, being the common part of indigenous human microbiota and present in numerous fermented food products and probiotics, are often positioned as health-threatening bacterial pathogens. This makes medical community, especially part of it which is not involved in microbiology research, in an uncertainty regarding the legitimacy of using enterococcal probiotics in medical practice or even consuming them in foods such as cheese or salami. However, the difference between the clinical strains and strains used as probiotics is more than significant. The present paper tries to shed light on enterococci based on the contemporary knowledge of molecular microbiology.