肠球菌潜在风险——耐药基因储存库

Potential Risks of Enterococci—Reservoir of Drug-Resistant Genes

肠球菌是一种广泛存在于自然环境中的乳酸菌(LAB),同时也可寄居于人和动物的肠道内。其被认为是引起院内感染的重要条件致病菌,可以引起尿路感染、脑膜炎、心内膜炎和脓毒血症等多种感染性疾病,且其发病率呈现出增高趋势。更重要的是,近年来研究表明,肠球菌可能是耐药基因的储存库,因其固有抗生素耐药性及其迅速获得额外抗生素耐药性的能力使感染很难治疗,尤其是万古霉素耐药菌的出现,构成了重大的感染控制负担。本文就肠球菌的致病性及耐药特性进行综述。

Enterococci are ubiquitous lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that exist widely in the natural environment, and they can also reside in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals. They are considered as important opportunistic pathogen causing nosocomial infection, and can cause many infectious diseases such as urinary tract infection, meningitis, endocarditis and sepsis. Moreover, the incidence of infectious diseases caused by Enterococci shows an increasing trend. More importantly, studies in recent years have shown that enterococci may be a repository for drug resistance gene, as their inherent antibiotic resistance and their ability to rapidly acquire additional antibiotic resistance make infections much more difficult to treat, particularly the emergence of vancomcin-resistant bacteria, which constitutes a significant burden of infection control. The pathogenicity and drug resistance of enterococcus were reviewed in this paper.