Enterococcus spp. obtained from fecal samples of healthy individuals in Portugal. Enterococcus

It Is known that Enterococcus faecium strains that colonize the intestinal tract of healthy individuals (which are generally, more susceptible to antibiotics and have few virulence genes) are usually different from those that cause hospital-associated infections since these are multidrug-resistant and enriched in virulence traits. Nonetheless, it was recently proposed that commensal E. faecium are in fact Enterococcus lactis species and those associated with infections are actually E. faecium.Due to this finding, it is critical to follow the enterococcal species occurrence throughout time and their antibiotic resistance profiles and to characterize their genetic features in order to prevent possible emerging resistance scenarios and therapeutic inefficacy both in hospital and community settings. This together with the fact that there are no studies precisely differentiating between these species neither about Enterococcus species distribution in healthy humans since 2006 in Portugal, we decided to assess the contemporary faecal carriage of enterococci species among healthy humans in Portugal and to get novel insights into E. faecium and E. lactis differences.