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. 2019 Apr 11;8(15):e00222-19. doi: 10.1128/MRA.00222-19

Draft Genome Sequences of 48 Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus faecium Strains Isolated from Inpatients with Bacteremia and Urinary Tract Infection

Zulema Udaondo a,#, Thidathip Wongsurawat a,#, Piroon Jenjaroenpun a, Courtney Anderson b, James Lopez b, Meera Mohan b, Ruslana Tytarenko c, Brian Walker c, Intawat Nookaew a, David Ussery a, Atul Kothari b,✉,#, Se-Ran Jun a,✉,#
Editor: David A Baltrusd
PMCID: PMC6460033  PMID: 30975810

Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) is a major cause of nosocomial infections of the bloodstream and urinary tract. Here, we report the draft genome sequences of 48 vancomycin-resistant E. faecium isolates recovered from inpatients exhibiting clinical signs of bacteremia at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).

ABSTRACT

Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) is a major cause of nosocomial infections of the bloodstream and urinary tract. Here, we report the draft genome sequences of 48 vancomycin-resistant E. faecium isolates recovered from inpatients exhibiting clinical signs of bacteremia at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).

ANNOUNCEMENT

Enterococcus faecium is an opportunistic environmental bacterium with an outstanding adaptive capacity to evolve and transfer antimicrobial-resistant determinants (1). E. faecium can cause persistent infections because of inherent and acquired resistance to common antibiotics, such as ampicillin and vancomycin (2). Vancomycin resistance can be conferred by different acquired gene clusters (vanA, vanB, vanD, vanE, vanG, vanL, vanM, and vanN), with vanA and vanB being the most common (3, 4). Decreasing the intestinal domination of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) in hospitalized patients and reducing the rate of patient-to-patient transmission are still challenging goals. To better understand the mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and the dynamics of transmission of this species in the hospital setting, we sequenced and analyzed 48 VREfm isolates collected from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Hospital.

The VREfm isolates presented here were identified from positive blood and urine cultures (24 each). Identification and antimicrobial susceptibility tests were performed in the UAMS Clinical Microbiology Laboratory using standard microbiology techniques. More specifically, blood cultures were processed on the BacT/Alert 3D (bioMérieux) system. Positive blood cultures were subcultured on blood agar plates. Isolated colonies were then used for identification and susceptibility testing using the Vitek MS and Vitek 2 systems. Vancomycin resistance was confirmed using Etests (bioMérieux). Urine cultures were processed similarly using blood agar plates for the isolation of colonies. Antimicrobial susceptibility test results were interpreted using the M100 CLSI standards (5). Microbial DNA was extracted from pure growth of VREfm. Isolated colonies on the blood agar plates were picked and resuspended into a DNA/RNA shield collection and lysis tube (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA). Genomic DNA was extracted from the tube using the Quick-DNA fungal/bacterial kit (Zymo Research, Irvine, CA). The purity of extracted DNA was determined using a NanoDrop spectrophotometer by measuring the A260/280 and A260/230 ratios. DNA integrity and quantity were determined using an Agilent 2200 TapeStation and a Qubit 3.0 assay, respectively. Paired-end 150-bp libraries were constructed using the Kapa HyperPlus kit (Roche) with enzymatic fragmentation for 10 min. The resulting genomic libraries of the 48 E. faecium isolates were sequenced using the Illumina NextSeq 550 platform at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Myeloma Center.

Adapters from the reads were trimmed using default parameters of fastp v0.19.5 (6) software, and poor-quality bases were removed using Trimmomatic v0.38 (7) with the following parameters: headcrop, 15; leading, 20; trailing, 20; slidingwindow, 5:20; and minlen, 50. The quality of the pre- and postprocessed reads was analyzed using the FastQC tool v0.11.8 (8). The resulting high-quality reads were assembled de novo using SPAdes v3.13.0 (9) with the “error-correction” and “careful” options; k-mer sizes of 21, 33, 55, and 77; and a minimum contig size of 500 bp. The draft genome sequences were checked for quality using default settings in QUAST v5.0.2 (10).

The genome sequences were submitted for annotation to the NCBI Prokaryotic Genome Annotation Pipeline (PGAP) (11) using the default parameters. All 48 isolates were screened for vancomycin resistance genes, verifying the presence of the vanA gene in all genomes in the study.

Data availability.

This whole-genome shotgun project has been deposited at DDBJ/ENA/GenBank under the accession numbers detailed in Table 1. The versions described in this announcement are the first ones. The GenBank and BioSample accession numbers are given in Table 1. Raw sequence data for this study are available at the Sequence Read Archive under accession number PRJNA520878.

TABLE 1.

Assembly metrics and accession numbers for 48 E. faecium isolates

Isolate name No. of contigs Total length (bp) GC (%) No. of reads N50 (bp) BioSample no. GenBank accession no. No. of ORFsa
UAMSEF_02 193 2,910,878 37.80 6,839,636 36,818 SAMN10869073 SEYV00000000 3,046
UAMSEF_03 198 2,911,646 37.80 7,114,878 35,022 SAMN10869074 SEYU00000000 3,044
UAMSEF_04 204 2,909,821 37.80 4,688,460 35,022 SAMN10869075 SEYT00000000 3,047
UAMSEF_05 203 2,911,291 37.80 4,881,024 34,261 SAMN10869076 SEYS00000000 3,054
UAMSEF_06 199 2,915,048 37.80 5,499,612 35,022 SAMN10869077 SEYR00000000 3,057
UAMSEF_07 200 2,921,117 37.79 5,228,072 33,402 SAMN10869078 SEYQ00000000 3,058
UAMSEF_10 204 3,029,727 37.66 6,167,912 35,022 SAMN10869079 SEYP00000000 3,208
UAMSEF_11 209 3,029,905 37.66 7,152,790 35,022 SAMN10869080 SEYO00000000 3,209
UAMSEF_12 209 3,030,170 37.66 7,191,884 35,022 SAMN10869081 SEYN00000000 3,208
UAMSEF_13 208 3,031,358 37.66 5,108,778 35,022 SAMN10869082 SEYL00000000 3,210
UAMSEF_14 207 3,033,907 37.66 5,789,340 35,022 SAMN10869083 SEYK00000000 3,228
UAMSEF_15 208 3,030,699 37.66 5,022,872 34,261 SAMN10869084 SEYJ00000000 3,218
UAMSEF_16 213 3,029,394 37.66 5,993,870 34,261 SAMN10869085 SEYI00000000 3,214
UAMSEF_17 219 3,036,737 37.66 6,044,830 34,261 SAMN10869086 SEYH00000000 3,227
UAMSEF_18 208 3,028,651 37.66 5,560,272 34,261 SAMN10869087 SEYG00000000 3,212
UAMSEF_19 213 3,030,152 37.66 7,403,936 34,261 SAMN10869088 SEYF00000000 3,213
UAMSEF_21 198 2,891,508 37.75 6,655,902 32,987 SAMN10869089 SEYE00000000 3,031
UAMSEF_22 159 2,749,498 37.95 6,867,326 42,992 SAMN10869090 SEYD00000000 2,857
UAMSEF_23 123 2,758,039 37.96 6,408,904 53,183 SAMN10869091 SEYC00000000 2,849
UAMSEF_24 40 2,770,238 38.23 7,386,962 246,941 SAMN10869092 SEYB00000000 2,792
UAMSEF_25 195 2,928,194 37.71 8,757,500 33,213 SAMN10869093 SEYA00000000 3,068
UAMSEF_26 29 2,664,140 37.94 4,900,272 136,618 SAMN10869094 SEXZ00000000 2,721
UAMSEF_27 222 2,902,431 37.71 5,726,412 31,483 SAMN10869095 SEXY00000000 3,058
UAMSEF_28 172 2,739,636 37.88 6,372,790 32,818 SAMN10869096 SEXX00000000 2,835
UAMSEF_29 199 2,879,498 37.75 5,414,500 31,547 SAMN10869097 SEXW00000000 3,036
UAMSEF_30 225 3,101,010 37.66 10,543,326 35,053 SAMN10869098 SEXV00000000 3,306
UAMSEF_31 229 3,096,967 37.66 6,861,760 33,476 SAMN10869099 SEXU00000000 3,313
UAMSEF_32 243 3,052,772 37.61 6,171,754 30,771 SAMN10869100 SEXT00000000 3,234
UAMSEF_33 202 2,880,836 37.74 7,659,930 31,547 SAMN10869101 SEXS00000000 3,030
UAMSEF_34 193 2,918,402 37.80 6,272,742 35,022 SAMN10869102 SEXR00000000 3,073
UAMSEF_35 173 2,849,207 37.74 6,435,630 40,697 SAMN10869103 SEXQ00000000 2,981
UAMSEF_36 191 2,845,779 37.74 6,167,138 40,603 SAMN10869104 SEXP00000000 2,996
UAMSEF_37 221 2,975,344 37.74 7,491,600 34,261 SAMN10869105 SEXO00000000 3,161
UAMSEF_38 187 2,938,030 37.62 6,602,994 43,049 SAMN10869106 SEXN00000000 3,097
UAMSEF_39 217 2,943,498 37.59 5,659,958 32,692 SAMN10869107 SEXM00000000 3,123
UAMSEF_40 172 2,846,352 37.74 6,122,006 46,310 SAMN10869108 SEXL00000000 2,972
UAMSEF_41 204 2,855,455 37.76 7,229,612 38,111 SAMN10869109 SEXK00000000 2,997
UAMSEF_42 237 3,050,710 37.61 6,845,894 30,771 SAMN10869110 SEXJ00000000 3,235
UAMSEF_43 185 2,847,828 37.73 7,869,526 40,603 SAMN10869111 SEXI00000000 2,978
UAMSEF_44 215 2,904,552 37.72 6,379,180 31,234 SAMN10869112 SEXH00000000 3,056
UAMSEF_45 185 2,845,170 37.78 6,850,388 37,403 SAMN10869113 SEXG00000000 2,971
UAMSEF_46 215 2,739,355 37.89 6,831,284 36,762 SAMN10869114 SEXF00000000 2,837
UAMSEF_47 216 2,927,294 37.74 6,728,684 34,275 SAMN10869115 SEYM00000000 3,073
UAMSEF_48 177 2,847,481 37.73 8,622,512 41,250 SAMN10869116 SEXE00000000 2,977
UAMSEF_49 226 2,993,736 37.58 8,560,860 32,693 SAMN10869117 SEXD00000000 3,170
UAMSEF_50 171 2,831,453 37.75 6,264,722 44,556 SAMN10869118 SEXC00000000 2,960
UAMSEF_51 174 2,848,308 37.74 8,268,752 43,050 SAMN10869119 SEXB00000000 2,975
UAMSEF_52 209 2,898,662 37.76 6,504,814 32,904 SAMN10869120 SEXA00000000 3,055
a

ORFs, open reading frames.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was approved by the institutional review board (IRB) of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (IRB number 228137).

This work was funded by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine Barton Pilot Grant FY19 program (AWD00052801). T.W., P.J., and I.N. are partially supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health award number P20GM125503. Z.U., T.W., P.J., D.U., and A.K. are supported in part by the Helen Adams & Arkansas Research Alliance. D.U. is also supported by NIH/NIGMS grant 1P20GM121293.

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Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Data Availability Statement

This whole-genome shotgun project has been deposited at DDBJ/ENA/GenBank under the accession numbers detailed in Table 1. The versions described in this announcement are the first ones. The GenBank and BioSample accession numbers are given in Table 1. Raw sequence data for this study are available at the Sequence Read Archive under accession number PRJNA520878.

TABLE 1.

Assembly metrics and accession numbers for 48 E. faecium isolates

Isolate name No. of contigs Total length (bp) GC (%) No. of reads N50 (bp) BioSample no. GenBank accession no. No. of ORFsa
UAMSEF_02 193 2,910,878 37.80 6,839,636 36,818 SAMN10869073 SEYV00000000 3,046
UAMSEF_03 198 2,911,646 37.80 7,114,878 35,022 SAMN10869074 SEYU00000000 3,044
UAMSEF_04 204 2,909,821 37.80 4,688,460 35,022 SAMN10869075 SEYT00000000 3,047
UAMSEF_05 203 2,911,291 37.80 4,881,024 34,261 SAMN10869076 SEYS00000000 3,054
UAMSEF_06 199 2,915,048 37.80 5,499,612 35,022 SAMN10869077 SEYR00000000 3,057
UAMSEF_07 200 2,921,117 37.79 5,228,072 33,402 SAMN10869078 SEYQ00000000 3,058
UAMSEF_10 204 3,029,727 37.66 6,167,912 35,022 SAMN10869079 SEYP00000000 3,208
UAMSEF_11 209 3,029,905 37.66 7,152,790 35,022 SAMN10869080 SEYO00000000 3,209
UAMSEF_12 209 3,030,170 37.66 7,191,884 35,022 SAMN10869081 SEYN00000000 3,208
UAMSEF_13 208 3,031,358 37.66 5,108,778 35,022 SAMN10869082 SEYL00000000 3,210
UAMSEF_14 207 3,033,907 37.66 5,789,340 35,022 SAMN10869083 SEYK00000000 3,228
UAMSEF_15 208 3,030,699 37.66 5,022,872 34,261 SAMN10869084 SEYJ00000000 3,218
UAMSEF_16 213 3,029,394 37.66 5,993,870 34,261 SAMN10869085 SEYI00000000 3,214
UAMSEF_17 219 3,036,737 37.66 6,044,830 34,261 SAMN10869086 SEYH00000000 3,227
UAMSEF_18 208 3,028,651 37.66 5,560,272 34,261 SAMN10869087 SEYG00000000 3,212
UAMSEF_19 213 3,030,152 37.66 7,403,936 34,261 SAMN10869088 SEYF00000000 3,213
UAMSEF_21 198 2,891,508 37.75 6,655,902 32,987 SAMN10869089 SEYE00000000 3,031
UAMSEF_22 159 2,749,498 37.95 6,867,326 42,992 SAMN10869090 SEYD00000000 2,857
UAMSEF_23 123 2,758,039 37.96 6,408,904 53,183 SAMN10869091 SEYC00000000 2,849
UAMSEF_24 40 2,770,238 38.23 7,386,962 246,941 SAMN10869092 SEYB00000000 2,792
UAMSEF_25 195 2,928,194 37.71 8,757,500 33,213 SAMN10869093 SEYA00000000 3,068
UAMSEF_26 29 2,664,140 37.94 4,900,272 136,618 SAMN10869094 SEXZ00000000 2,721
UAMSEF_27 222 2,902,431 37.71 5,726,412 31,483 SAMN10869095 SEXY00000000 3,058
UAMSEF_28 172 2,739,636 37.88 6,372,790 32,818 SAMN10869096 SEXX00000000 2,835
UAMSEF_29 199 2,879,498 37.75 5,414,500 31,547 SAMN10869097 SEXW00000000 3,036
UAMSEF_30 225 3,101,010 37.66 10,543,326 35,053 SAMN10869098 SEXV00000000 3,306
UAMSEF_31 229 3,096,967 37.66 6,861,760 33,476 SAMN10869099 SEXU00000000 3,313
UAMSEF_32 243 3,052,772 37.61 6,171,754 30,771 SAMN10869100 SEXT00000000 3,234
UAMSEF_33 202 2,880,836 37.74 7,659,930 31,547 SAMN10869101 SEXS00000000 3,030
UAMSEF_34 193 2,918,402 37.80 6,272,742 35,022 SAMN10869102 SEXR00000000 3,073
UAMSEF_35 173 2,849,207 37.74 6,435,630 40,697 SAMN10869103 SEXQ00000000 2,981
UAMSEF_36 191 2,845,779 37.74 6,167,138 40,603 SAMN10869104 SEXP00000000 2,996
UAMSEF_37 221 2,975,344 37.74 7,491,600 34,261 SAMN10869105 SEXO00000000 3,161
UAMSEF_38 187 2,938,030 37.62 6,602,994 43,049 SAMN10869106 SEXN00000000 3,097
UAMSEF_39 217 2,943,498 37.59 5,659,958 32,692 SAMN10869107 SEXM00000000 3,123
UAMSEF_40 172 2,846,352 37.74 6,122,006 46,310 SAMN10869108 SEXL00000000 2,972
UAMSEF_41 204 2,855,455 37.76 7,229,612 38,111 SAMN10869109 SEXK00000000 2,997
UAMSEF_42 237 3,050,710 37.61 6,845,894 30,771 SAMN10869110 SEXJ00000000 3,235
UAMSEF_43 185 2,847,828 37.73 7,869,526 40,603 SAMN10869111 SEXI00000000 2,978
UAMSEF_44 215 2,904,552 37.72 6,379,180 31,234 SAMN10869112 SEXH00000000 3,056
UAMSEF_45 185 2,845,170 37.78 6,850,388 37,403 SAMN10869113 SEXG00000000 2,971
UAMSEF_46 215 2,739,355 37.89 6,831,284 36,762 SAMN10869114 SEXF00000000 2,837
UAMSEF_47 216 2,927,294 37.74 6,728,684 34,275 SAMN10869115 SEYM00000000 3,073
UAMSEF_48 177 2,847,481 37.73 8,622,512 41,250 SAMN10869116 SEXE00000000 2,977
UAMSEF_49 226 2,993,736 37.58 8,560,860 32,693 SAMN10869117 SEXD00000000 3,170
UAMSEF_50 171 2,831,453 37.75 6,264,722 44,556 SAMN10869118 SEXC00000000 2,960
UAMSEF_51 174 2,848,308 37.74 8,268,752 43,050 SAMN10869119 SEXB00000000 2,975
UAMSEF_52 209 2,898,662 37.76 6,504,814 32,904 SAMN10869120 SEXA00000000 3,055
a

ORFs, open reading frames.


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