diff --git a/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/BaseAdaptor.pm b/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/BaseAdaptor.pm
index 2fe6c4566e6cc9cee5b6cabc587bc3865076c920..9d188eb0d3595bf631910b52531324770db8996b 100755
--- a/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/BaseAdaptor.pm
+++ b/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/DBSQL/BaseAdaptor.pm
@@ -272,7 +272,7 @@ sub _list_dbIDs {
 
   if ( !defined($pk) ) { $pk = $table . "_id" }
 
-  my $sql = sprintf( "SELECT %s FROM %s", $pk, $table );
+  my $sql = sprintf( "SELECT `%s` FROM `%s`", $pk, $table );
 
   my $join_with_cs = 0;
   if (    $self->is_multispecies()