Publication details
Pool of antimicrobial resistance genes in coagulase-negative staphylococci and their transfer among bacterial strains
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) are important cause of both human and animal diseases. Treatment of these diseases is complicated by common antimicrobial resistance of these bacteria. Genes encoding resistance to many kinds of antimicrobial drugs are mostly located on mobile genetic elements such as plasmids, which can be spread to different strains by horizontal transfer. In this study we analyzed plasmid content of 8 species of CoNS isolated from human and veterinary samples. The majority of strains harboured plasmids carrying a variety of antimicrobial resistance genes. Sequence analysis proved that some strains belonging to different species of CoNS and S. aureus carry identical plasmids which can also be transferred horizontally among these strains. To confirm this possibility, we conducted transfer of 4 tetracycline and streptomycin plasmids from donor strains S. epidermidis, S. petrasii and S. aureus to recipient strains S. aureus and S. petrasii by electroporation. Plasmids were transferred into the recipient strains unchanged, were stably inherited and expressed their resistance genes. The results show that CoNS strains can serve as an important reservoir of resistance plasmids with a vast variety of resistance determinants which can be spread horizontally in the population of staphylococci. |