Strains of Enterobacter cloacae Isolated in a Hospital Environment – Some Phenotypic and Genotypic Properties

Abstract

The aim of this study was to characterise the 34 Enterobacter cloacae strains isolated from different places in a hospital, either from patients who were infected or colonised and from the body surface of German cockroaches (Blatella germanica) caught in hospitals. A number of factors were determined: the ability of E. cloacae strains to adhere to the HEp-2 cell line, their susceptibility to drugs, the activity of disinfectant agents to planktonic cells and effectiveness of those disinfectants to bacteria that are sessile on catheters as well as the Enterobacterial Repetitive Intergenic Consensus – Polymerase Chain Reaction (ERIC-PCR) profile of the strains. On the basis of a statistical analysis of all the phenotypic results we were able to distinguish a few clusters. The majority of them consisted of strains isolated from colonisation and infection of patients. Some clusters consisted of E. cloacae from all the test sites. Some strains showed similarities of their phenotypic properties as well as the ERIC-PCR profile. Epidemiological studies are continuing.

Keywords

Enterobacter cloacae Virulence Hospital environment

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