Hospital and Community Ampicillin-Resistant Enterococcus faecium Are Evolutionarily Closely Linked but Have Diversified through Niche Adaptation

BACKGROUND: Ampicillin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (ARE) has emerged as a nosocomial pathogen. Here, we quantified ARE carriage in different community sources and determined genetic relatedness with hospital ARE. METHODS AND RESULTS: ARE was recovered from rectal swabs of 24 of 79 (30%) dogs, 11 of 85 (13%) cats and 0 of 42 horses and from 3 of 40 (8%) faecal samples of non-hospitalized humans receiving amoxicillin. Multi-locus Sequence Typing revealed 21 sequence types (STs), including 5 STs frequently associated with hospital-acquired infections. Genes previously found to be enriched in hospital ARE, such as IS16, orf903, orf905, orf907, were highly prevalent in community ARE (≥79%), while genes with a proposed role in pathogenesis, such as esp, hyl and ecbA, were found rarely (≤5%) in community isolates. Comparative genome analysis of 2 representative dog isolates revealed that the dog strain of ST192 was evolutionarily closely linked to two previously sequenced hospital ARE, but had, based on gene content, more genes in common with the other, evolutionarily more distantly related, dog strain (ST266). CONCLUSION: ARE were detected in dogs, cats and sporadically in healthy humans, with evolutionary linkage to hospital ARE. Yet, their accessory genome has diversified, probably as a result of niche adaptation.