2021 Volume 47 Issue 1 Pages 38-42
Streptococcus faecalis is the primary ingredient of medical probiotics. It has now been identified as an enterococcal species, after being reclassified as Enterococcus faecalis. Despite this reclassification, most package inserts and drug interview sheets have maintained the name S. faecalis. Meanwhile, reports of results from drug susceptibility tests using medical probiotics that contain S. faecalis commonly refer to this species of bacterium as E. faecalis. In this study, we used biochemical identification testing, mass spectrometry and 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing to verify whether the seven strains of S. faecalis, which is present in various medical probiotics, could be identified as the strain currently classified as E. faecalis. All strains were identified as E. faecium by all techniques.
