COMPARATIVE GENOMIC ANALYSIS OF BACTERIOCIN GENE CLUSTERS AMONG FOOD AND CLINICAL ENTEROCOCCAL STRAINS

SUÁREZ, NADIA; BONACINA, JULIETA; MOZZI, FERNANDA; SESMA, FERNANDO; SAAVEDRA, LUCILA

Egmond aan Zee - North Holland

Simposio; 11th International Symposium on Lactic Acid Bacteria. Health, sustainability, diversity, and application; 2014

Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS) and the Royal Netherlands Society for Microbiology (KNVM)

Enterococcus strains have become an increasingly important pathogen worldwide. Besides, they are also common constituents of dairy fermented products around the world, such as cheese and sausages, in which it is believed that they contribute to the development of the organoleptic and safety properties of the final product. This is particularly true since they are very prolific in the production of antimicrobial compounds such as bacteriocins, especially active against gram positive bacteria. In our laboratory, we have been studying strains belonging to the genera Enterococcus isolated from fermented food products as model microorganisms for the production of bacteriocins. In previous findings we characterized the bacteriocin clusters present in E. mundtii CRL35 and E. faecium CRL1879 genomes. In the present work, we performed an in silico screening of bacteriocin clusters in enterococci strains isolated from food and clinical samples and compared to those present in our strains. We analyzed 242 partial or complete E faecium genomes deposited in GenBank, we found that six clinical isolates belonging to the Broad Institute (ENGEN0004; ENGEN 0031; ENGEN 0033; ENGEN 0035, ENGEN 0052 and ENGEN 0263 strains) harbored between two to eight bacteriocin genes. Interestingly, we found genes encoding for bacteriocins described in the Lactobacillus genus (sakacin Q and sakacin T genes) besides those previously described in enterococcus (enterocin A, B, P SE-K4, X, NKR-5-3A, L50A and B, enterolysin A). In summary, it seems that bacteriocin genes are widely distributed among enterococcus independently of the origin of the strain. The newly available genomic data and the ongoing developments in other areas might help us to understand their evolutionary origins and their role in microbial interactions.