Comparative study of vanA gene transfer from Enterococcus faecium to Enterococcus faecalis and to Enterococcus faecium in the intestine of mice.

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci represent a large reservoir in animals because of the use of avoparcin as a growth promoter in Europe. These strains of animal origin enter the food chain and can either colonize the human gut or transfer their resistance genes to the human microbiota. In this study, we compared the transfer of vancomycin resistance from resistant animal Enterococcus faecium to sensitive human Enterococcus faecalis and E.

Countrywide spread of community- and hospital-acquired extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (CTX-M-15)-producing Enterobacteriaceae in Lebanon.

A prospective study was carried out to assess the extent of carriage of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Enterobacteriaceae at both hospital and community levels in Lebanon. A total of 1,442 fecal samples were collected from hospital-based patients and 58 from health care workers of six Lebanese tertiary care general hospitals located in different areas of Lebanon between January and March 2003. A total of 382 fecal samples were also collected from healthy subjects between April and June 2003.

Pulse-field gel electrophoresis typing of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains susceptible to aminoglycosides isolated from 1993 to 2002.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) susceptible strains to aminoglycosides (AS-MRSA) have been increasingly isolated in the Albert Cheneiver Hospital during the past 10 years. The aim of this study was first, to analyse the genotypes and the profiles of resistance to antibiotics and second to compare the AS-MRSA with the MRSA resistant to gentamicin (GR-MRSA) and with MRSA resistant to kanamycin and tobramycin, but susceptible to gentamicin (GS-MRSA), previously studied in our laboratory. All the AS-MRSA consecutively isolated from clinical samples (carriage isolates excluded) from 01/01/1993 to 31/12/2002 (33 isolates) were typed by DNA macrorestriction.

Chromosomal integration of a cephalosporinase gene from Acinetobacter baumannii into Oligella urethralis as a source of acquired resistance to beta-lactams.

Clinical Oligella urethralis isolate COH-1, which was uncommonly resistant to penicillins and narrow-spectrum cephalosporins, was recovered from a 55-year-old patient with a urinary tract infection. Shotgun cloning into Escherichia coli and expression experiments gave recombinant clones expressing either an AmpC beta-lactamase-type phenotype of resistance or a carbenicillin-hydrolyzing beta-lactamase-type phenotype of resistance. The AmpC beta-lactamase identified (ABA-1), which had a pI value of 8.

A clinical trial of mupirocin in the eradication of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus nasal carriage in a digestive disease unit.

We assessed the incidence of nasal carriage of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) on admission, the rate of acquisition during the hospital stay and the relationship with subsequent infection in a digestive disease unit. The efficacy of a program of nasal carriage eradication with mupirocin was evaluated simultaneously. Over one year 484 patients were studied prospectively on admission for nasal and stool carriage of MRSA, then every week for nasal carriage.