Team CPE, UMR MICALIS

Fight against pathogenic and multi-resistant bacteria is a major challenge for human and animal health. The gastrointestinal tract is a reservoir for opportunistic pathogens or pathobionts, which benefit from the imbalance or dysbiosis of the microbiota to invade and infect susceptible hosts.

Enterococci, especially Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium, rank among the top five causes of opportunistic infections in humans. They are present at a sub-dominant level in the gastrointestinal microbiota of healthy humans. Thanks to their intrinsic resistance to different classes of antibiotics and their ability to acquire new ones, enterococci proliferate in the intestinal tract of immunocompromised patients treated with antibiotics, and cause nosocomial infections. Enterococcus cecorum is a commensal of avian species that has emerged as a major cause of lameness in poultry, causing significant economic lost and frequent antibiotic treatments.

CPE goal is to understand the molecular, cellular and physiologic mechanisms that allow enterococci to become pathogenic, using E. faecalis and E. cecorum as main model organisms.

Our work aims to generate knowledge to develop new prevention, therapeutic and diagnostic strategies against multi-resistant pathogens, to ultimately limit the use of antibiotics in human and animal health.

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