acm

Enterococcus faecium is recently evolved from a generally avirulent commensal into a multidrug-resistant health care-associated pathogen causing difficult-to-treat infections, but little is known about the factors responsible for this change. Previouse studies showed that some E. faecium strains express a cell wall-anchored collagen adhesin, Acm. Scientists analyzed 90 E. faecium isolates (99% acm(+)) and found that the Acm protein was detected predominantly in clinically derived isolates, while the acm gene was present as a transposon-interrupted pseudogene in 12 of 47 isolates of nonclinical origin. A highly significant association between clinical (versus fecal or food) origin and collagen adherence (P