THE GENE ENCODING FOR PENICILLIN-BINDING PROTEIN-5 OF ENTEROCOCCUS-FAECALIS IS USEFUL FOR DEVELOPMENT OF A SPECIES-SPECIFIC DNA-PROBE

Recently, in Escherichia coli was cloned a Sau3AI 3.4-kb fragment cont aining the gene encoding for penicillin-binding protein 5 (PBP5) of En terococcus faecalis. The structural gene for the PBP of E, faecalis an d the flanking regions mere entirely sequenced (C, Signoretto, M, Boar etti, and P, Canepari, FEMS Microbiol, Lett, 123:99-106, 1994), When t he entire cloned E, faecalis DNA insert, labeled with digoxigenin, was used as a probe to detect a homology gene in enterococci, it was obse rved that only DNAs of all the E, faecalis strains reacted to the prob e, The same results were obtained when a HindIII fragment of 0.35 kb f rom the entire insert of 3.4 kb was used, In this study we tested a to tal of 62 clinically isolated enterococcal strains, belonging to the s pecies E, faecalis (36 strains), E, faecium (13), E. gallinarum (6), E , bovis (2) E. avium (3), E. hirae (1), and E, casseliflavus (1). The results indicate that both the entire segment and the HindIII fragment may be useful for preparing a species-specific probe for rapid identi fication of E, faecalis species.