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. 2023 Jan 21;12(2):231.
doi: 10.3390/antibiotics12020231.

Targeting Enterococci with Antimicrobial Activity against Clostridium perfringens from Poultry

Sara García-Vela  1   2 , Laila Ben Said  1 , Samira Soltani  1 , Ramzi Guerbaa  1   3 , Rosa Fernández-Fernández  2 , Houssem Ben Yahia  3 , Karim Ben Slama  3 , Carmen Torres  2 , Ismail Fliss  1
Affiliations

Targeting Enterococci with Antimicrobial Activity against Clostridium perfringens from Poultry

Sara García-Vela et al. Antibiotics (Basel). .

Abstract

Necrotic enteritis (NE), caused by Clostridium perfringens, is an emerging issue in poultry farming. New approaches, other than antibiotics, are necessary to prevent NE development and the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria. Enterococci are commensal microorganisms that can produce enterocins, antimicrobial peptides with activities against pathogens, and could be excellent candidates for protective cultures. This study aimed to screen and characterize Enterococcus strains of poultry origin for their inhibitory activity against C. perfringens. In total, 251 Enterococcus strains of poultry origin plus five bacteriocin-producing (BP+) E. durans strains of other origins were screened for antimicrobial activity against the indicator C. perfringens X2967 strain using the "spot on the lawn" method. We detected thirty-two BP+ strains (eleven Enterococcus faecium, nine E. gallinarum, eight E. faecalis, three E. durans, and one E. casseliflavus). We further studied the antimicrobial activity of the supernatants of these 32 BP+ strains using agar well diffusion and microtitration against a collection of 20 C. perfringens strains. Twelve BP+ enterococci that were found to exhibit antimicrobial activity against C. perfringens were characterized using whole genome sequencing. Among these, E. faecium X2893 and X2906 were the most promising candidates for further studies as protective cultures for poultry farming. Both strains belong to the sequence type ST722, harbor the genes encoding for enterocin A and enterocin B, do not possess acquired resistance genes, do not carry plasmids, and present the acm gene, which is implicated in host colonization. Further research is needed to determine the utility of these strains as protective cultures.

Keywords: Clostridium perfringens; enterocins; enterococci; necrotic enteritis; protective cultures; whole genome sequencing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Inhibition halos (marked with the red arrow) produced by 2 of the BP+ enterococci tested against the C. perfringens X2967 indicator strain.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Inhibition halo of the E. faecium strain, X3179, against one of the 20 C. perfringens isolates. The bigger halo corresponds to the activity of nisin, used as a control.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Phylogenetic tree based on the average nucleotide identity (ANI) of the 12 BP+ enterococci. The reference strain, ATCC 29212, was also included.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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