Emergence of CC17 vancomycin variable Enterococcus faecium in India

Abstract

Vancomycin variable enterococci (VVE) are those isolates that are susceptible to glycopeptide like vancomycin but harbour the resistance determinants like vanA gene. Globally the emergence of such strains was reported, and from India our centre was the first to report them. The present study focussed on analysing genome content of these strains from India to assess their genetic diversity. While the five isolates belonged to three sequence types, all the isolates were of clonal complex CC17. This supports that VVE from India are genetically closely related and are emerging from a single clone.