Incidence of High-Level Evernimicin Resistance in Enterococcus faecium among Food Animals and Humans

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Abstract
Six high-level evernimicin-resistant Enterococcus faecium isolates were identified among 304 avilamycin-resistant E . faecium isolates from animals and 404 stool samples from humans with diarrhea. All four animal isolates, and one of the human isolates, were able to transfer resistance to a susceptible E . faecium strain. The resulting transconjugants all tested positive for the presence of emtA , a gene encoding a methyltransferase previously linked with high-level evernimicin resistance. The four transconjugants derived from animal isolates all carried the same plasmid, while a differently sized plasmid was found in the isolate from humans. This study demonstrated a low incidence of high-level evernimicin resistance mediated by the emtA gene in different E . faecium isolates of animal and human origin.