Isolation and identification of E. durans and E. hirae from mastitic bovine milks

In this study, the identification of Enterococcus durans and Enterococcus hirae which are mostly interfering with each other because of very high 16S rRNA similarity that were isolated from mastitic milk samples with using molecular methods was aimed. The material was consisted of milk samples taken from 620 cows suspected of clinical or subclinical mastitis. Firstly, ninety six enterococci suspected isolates were obtained with phenotypic methods. Then it was confirmed that all these isolates were Enterococcus spp. by PCR with using specific primers. The results of PCR with using species-spesific primers showed that out of 96 enteroccocci isolates 9 (9.3%) were E. hirae and 5 (5.2%) were E. durans. 16 S ribosomal RNA fragments were amplified with using universal 16 S primers and these identifications were also confirmed with sequence analysis. It's difficult to differentiate these two species by using phenotypic methods from each other because of their high 16S rRNA similarities and it was also showed that these species could be easily differentiated by molecular methods with using specific primers. It's concluded that this method could be useful for routine laboratory procedures of the identification of enterococci isolated from mastitic bovine milk because of its time-saving, easiness and reliability. It's thought that further studies on the determination of virulence factors and antibiotic resistance of these two enterococci spp. should be designed to understand the pathogenesis of these microorganisms