Enhancement of the antibacterial activity of an E. faecalis strain by the heterologous expression of enterocin A

•An allelic exchange method was used to clone the enterocin A in an E. faecalis strain.•Recombinant E. faecalis does not require inductors to express enterocin A.•The modified strain was active against S. aureus, L. monocytogenes and E. faecalis.•The modified enterococcal strain reduced two-log of Listeria counts in co-culture.•The improved strain is useful in food due to its metabolic and antibacterial traits. The genus Enterococcus occurs as native microbiota of fermented products due to its broad environmental distribution and its resistance to salt concentrations. Enterococcus faecalis F, a non-pathogenic strain isolated from a ripened cheese, has demonstrated useful enzymatic capabilities, a probiotic behavior and antibacterial activity against some food-borne pathogens, mainly due to peptidoglycan hydrolase activity. Its use as a natural pathogen-control agent could be further enhanced through the production of a bacteriocin, e.g. Enterocin A, because of its remarkable antilisterial activity. In this work, a markerless allelic insertion method was used to obtain an enterococcal strain capable of producing a functional enterocin. Agar diffusion tests showed that the recombinant strain was active against Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes and the pathogenic strain E. faecalis V583. When grown in liquid culture together with L. monocytogenes, it attained a two-log reduction of the pathogen counts in lesser time relative to the native strain. Because the DNA construction is integrated into the chromosome, the improved strain avoids the use of antibiotics as selective pressure; besides, it does not require an inductor because of the inclusion of a constitutive promoter in the construction. Its technological and antibacterial capabilities make the improved E. faecalis strain a potential culture for use in the food industry.