TY - JOUR
TI - Indications of in vivo transfer of an epidemic R plasmid from Salmonella
enteritidis to Escherichia coli of the normal human gut flora
AU - Balis, E
AU - Vatopoulos, AC
AU - Kanelopoulou, M
AU - Mainas, E and
AU - Hatzoudis, G
AU - Kontogianni, V
AU - MalamouLada, H and
AU - KitsouKiriakopoulou, S
AU - Kalapothaki, V
JO - Journal of Clinical Microbiology
PY - 1996
VL - 34
TODO - 4
SP - 977-979
PB - AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY
SN - 0095-1137, 1098-660X
TODO - 10.1128/JCM.34.4.977-979.1996
TODO - null
TODO - The presence of conjugative R plasmids as well as the possible
similarities among them were studied in nine ampicillin-resistant
Salmonella enteritidis isolates and nine ampicillin-resistant
Escherichia coli isolates from the normal fecal flora that were
simultaneously isolated from nine epidemiologically unrelated
outpatients. It was found that in eight patients, ampicillin resistance
in S. enteritidis was encoded by ca. 34-MDa transferable plasmids very
similar to those found in a recent study of the epidemiology of
ampicillin-resistant S. enteritidis in Greece (A. C. Vatopoulos, E.
Mainas, E. Balls, E. J. Threlfall, M. Kanelopoulou, V. Kalapothaki, H.
Malamou-Lada, and N. J. Legakis, J. Clin. Microbiol. 32:1322-1325,
1994). Moreover, transferable R plasmids with the same molecular size
and restriction pattern were found in the normal flora E. coli of two of
these patients. This finding, if confirmed by further studies, is
consistent with the hypothesis that normal flora E. coli could act as a
reservoir of resistant genes and, consequently, as a factor in the
dissemination of these genes among pathogens of human and animal origin
such as Salmonella spp. and needs to be examined further.
ER -