Enterococcus faecalis was originally isolated in 1906 under the name Streptococcus faecalis [Andrewes06]. In the following years the term Enterococcus was used frequently as a separate generic designation outside the Streptococci. However, a classification scheme proposed in 1937 separated Streptococci into four divisions, one of which was the enterococci [Sherman37]. It was only in 1984, after DNA-DNA and DNA-rRNA hybridizations showed that S. faecalis was distantly related to streptococci, that the organism was transferred to a new genus that was named Enterococcus [Schleifer84].

Enterococcus faecalis V583 was isolated in February 12th 1987 from a blood culture of a patient at the Barnes Hospital, St. Louis, Mo, that had received vancomycin previously. It was the first vancomycin-resistant clinical isolate reported in the United States [Sahm89]. Its genome was fully sequenced in 2003, revealing that over a quarter of the genome consists of mobile and/or exogenously acquired DNA, including seven probable integrated phage regions, 38 insertion elements, multiple conjugative and composite transposons, a pathogenicity island, and integrated plasmid genes [Paulsen03].

Enterococcus faecalis V583 possesses pathways for the utilization of more than 15 different sugars and has 35 PTS-type sugar transporters along with ABC-type and other sugar uptake systems. Even though it lacks a TCA cycle, it is able to respire aerobically when grown in the presence of hemin [Winstedt00, Portela14]. It is auxotrophic for seven amino acids, including L-histidine, L-tryptophan, L-arginine, L-methionine, and the branched-chain amino acids L-isoleucine, L-valine, and L-leucine [Veith15]. The organism is non-motile, and belongs to serotype CPS-C [Sahm89].

This Pathway/Genome Database (PGDB) was generated by the PathoLogic [Karp11, Karp16] component of Pathway Tools software version 28.5 and MetaCyc [Caspi18] version 28.1 on 12-Apr-2024.

We thank Professor Jose Lemos and his team (University of Florida) and Professor Kimberly Kline and her team (University of Geneva) for their assistance in identifying recent advancements in E. faecalis research and relevant data collections for this PGDB.