Department of Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Trends Microbiol. 2012 Jan;20(1):40-9. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2011.11.001. Epub 2011 Dec 12.
Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium are among the leading causative agents of nosocomial infections and are infamous for their resistance to many antibiotics. They cause difficult-to-treat infections, often originating from biofilm-mediated infections associated with implanted medical devices or endocarditis. Biofilms protect bacteria against antibiotics and phagocytosis, and physical removal of devices or infected tissue is often needed but is frequently not possible. Currently there are no clinically available compounds that disassemble biofilms. In this review we discuss all known structural and regulatory genes involved in enterococcal biofilm formation, the compounds directed against biofilm formation that have been studied, and potentially useful targets for future drugs to treat enterococcal biofilm-associated infections.
粪肠球菌和屎肠球菌是导致医院感染的主要病原体之一，它们以对抗生素的耐药性而臭名昭著。它们可引起难以治疗的感染，这些感染通常源于与植入式医疗设备或心内膜炎相关的生物膜介导感染。生物膜可保护细菌免受抗生素和吞噬作用的影响，因此通常需要去除设备或受感染的组织，但这种方法往往不可行。目前尚无可用于临床的分解生物膜的化合物。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了所有已知的参与肠球菌生物膜形成的结构和调节基因、针对生物膜形成的已研究化合物，以及治疗肠球菌生物膜相关感染的潜在有用的药物靶点。
