الفهرس 
Introduction
General characteristics of enterococciOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The present study aims to explore the prevalence and characteristics of enterococcal clinical isolates collected from Mansoura University Hospitals, Egypt, assess their ability to form biofilm, and the correlation with virulence genes detected. A total of 70 Enterococcal clinical isolates were collected from different clinical sources between June and December 2015. Biofilm formation capacity was assessed, and characterization of virulence factors and antibiotic susceptibility was performed. Clonal relatedness between isolates was assessed using enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus-PCR (ERIC-PCR) approach. The molecular analysis demonstrated high genetic diversity among enterococcal clinical isolates. The gelE was the most frequently detected gene (91.4%), followed by asa1 (70%), esp (65.7%), and cylA (17.1%), while hyl was not detected in any isolate. Gelatinase activity was detected in 35.7%, while hemolysin and lipase activity was detected in 12.9% and 78.5%, respectively. Most of the enterococcal isolates were biofilm producers, of which 80% were strong/moderate biofilm producers. Strong/moderate biofilm formation was more frequently observed among cylA-negative (cylA-) enterococcal isolates. Multiple regression analysis denoted that cylA (odds ratio [OR] 0.26, p = 0.03) was associated with strong/moderate biofilm formation capacity. These findings suggested that cylA negative (cylA-) enterococcal strains had higher capacity for biofilm formation than cylA positive (cylA+) enterococcal strains.