Abstract
From June, 2012 to November, 2013 five linezolid-resistant Staphylococcus cohnii isolates were identified in our hospital in Beijing, China. The investigation of the resistance mechanisms confirmed that the cfr-carrying plasmids were the main cause of linezolid resistance in those clinical isolates. Moreover, all the five isolates had ribosomal protein L3 mutations, which had different coordinate effect on cfr-mediated linezolid resistance directly through the substitution of serine 158 by phenylalanine or tyrosine in L3 protein. In this study, two types of plasmids (p432, p438) (Accession No. KM114207) were found, which share high sequence identity with previously reported cfr-carrying pRM01 and pMHZ plasmids originated from northern and southern China, showing wide regional dissemination in China. The stability of linezolid resistance was studied by passaging single colonies serially on antibiotic-free blood medium, which showed that the susceptible derivatives emerged until the passages 39–42 with the elimination of cfr-carrying plasmid. Thus the high stability of this plasmid may pose a risk for the transmission among patients or even cause an outbreak in clinical settings.
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Acknowledgments
This work was funded by Project Grant [2012AA02A511] from National High Technology Research and Development Program, China, and Project Grant [Z121107005112003] from the Applied Research Program of Capital Clinical Features, Wujieping Medical Foundation.
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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.
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Hongtao Xu and Rui Tian contributed equally to this work.
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Xu, H., Tian, R., Li, Y. et al. Ribosomal Protein L3 Mutations are Associated with cfr-Mediated Linezolid Resistance in Clinical Isolates of Staphylococcus cohnii . Curr Microbiol 70, 840–845 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-015-0793-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-015-0793-y