Investigation of the Optimal Cocktailed Probiotics for Decolonization of Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci in Human Gut

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) has been a serious public health issue as an opportunistic pathogen and reservoir of antibiotic resistant genes. To reduce VRE carriage in human gut, investigators aim to look for effective probiotic cocktail to compete with VRE in human gut microflora via the technique of microbiome analysis pipeline (MAP). The probiotic cocktail gave by MAP result will be tested in a clinical trial, in which 80 subjects with VRE carriage will be enrolled and allocated randomly into two groups. Subjects in first group will be administered with probiotic cocktail capsules, and placebo capsules will be given to the second group in a double-blind manner. Stool samples will be collected from subjects before and after three weeks of probiotic/probiotic capsule uptake, and analyzed for VRE number and gut microflora changes to evaluate the efficacy of probiotic cocktail.