Faecal carriage of enterococci by Portuguese healthy humans

Introduction: Forensic Microbiology is an emerging discipline in clinical diagnostics and public health that can be applied, for example, to clarify the origin of a hospital-acquired infection [1].Enterococcus faecium (Efm) colonizes the human gut but is also one leading hospital pathogen worldwide.Last year, a taxonomic restructuration proposed that Efm inhabiting the human gut may actually correspond to Enterococcus lactis species, while those causing hospital infections are truly Efm [2].Objectives: Our main goal was to assess the current fecal carriage rate of E. faecium in Portuguese healthy humans and to add in the establishment of criteria to differentiate them from E. lactis since this species is expectedly dominant in the human gut.Methods: Nine faecal samples were obtained from healthy volunteers (5 females, 4 males; age range 23-68 years, mean 46 years) of the metropolitan Porto area (4 cities) between February-March 2022.Sample (2 g) processing included an enrichment step in Brain-Heart Infusion broth without/with 3 antibiotics (ampicillin-16 μg/mL, vancomycin-6 μg/mL or linezolid-4 μg/mL) for 37°C/18h.The resulting enrichment (0.1mL) was seeded onto Slanetz-Bartley agar plates, without/with the same antibiotics (37°C/48 h).

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