Study on the relationship of an outbreak of Enterococcus facium sepsis between humans and pigs / 中华传染病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To assess the epidemiological relatedness on an outbreak of Enterococcus facium sepsis between humans and pigs based on genomic analysis. Methods Two bacterial isolates recovered randomly from the blood of one patient and one pig were analyzed for homogeneities by comparison with 16S rRNA gene sequences in the GeneBank. Moreover, The extracted genomic DNA was digested with the 20 U SamI enzyme respectively, then their interrelationship was performed according to the pulsed field gel electrophoresis. Results Sequences determined from both human and pig isolates were 100% identical and most closely related to E. facium , diverging from the prototype sequence by one nucleotide (99.9% similarity) and displayed indistinguishable pulsed field gel electrophoresis patterns. Conclusions These data demonstrate epidemiological relatedness of the bacterial isolates, and suggest spread of an E. facium -related sepsis outbreak from pigs to humans.