Carbonic anhydrase inhibition as a target for antibiotic synergy in enterococci

Enterococcus faecalis is a hospital-associated opportunistic pathogen that can cause infections with high mortality, such as infective endocarditis. With an increasing occurrence of multidrug-resistant enterococci, there is a need for alternative treatment strategies to treat enterococcal infections. We isolated a gentamicin-hypersusceptible E. faecalis strain from a patient with infective endocarditis that was found to carry a mutation in the alpha-carbonic anhydrase (alpha-CA), and investigated how disruption of alpha-CA sensitized E. faecalis to killing with gentamicin.