The presence of enterocin-encoding genes was studied by PCR amplification with primers for the following well-known enterococcal bacteriocins: enterocin A; enterocin B; enterocin P; enterocin 31 and enterocin L50A/B (du Toit et al., 2000). Total genomic DNA from strains was used.PCR products were analyzed by electrophoresis (85 V for 1 h 5min) on 2% (w/v) agarose gels in 1x TAE buffer. Gels were stained GelRed (Invitrogen) and observed under UV light. The sizes of the amplified fragments were determined using 100-bp DNA Ladder (Invitrogen) as a molecular weight marker. As a positive control, the entA, B and P bacteriocingene sequenced of E. faecium CRL1385 were used (accession numbers to the GeneBank database GQ369790,GQ369791andFJ57726, respectively).