A novel mechanism of streptomycin resistance in < i > Yersinia pestis < /i > : Mutation in the < i > rpsL < /i > gene

by Ruixia Dai, Jian He, Xi Zha, Yiting Wang, Xuefei Zhang, He Gao, Xiaoyan Yang, Juan Li, Youquan Xin, Yumeng Wang, Sheng Li, Juan Jin, Qi Zhang, Jixiang Bai, Yao Peng, Hailian Wu, Qingwen Zhang, Baiqing Wei, Jianguo Xu, Wei Li Streptomycin is considered to be one of the effective antibiotics for the treatment of plague. In order to investigate the streptomycin resistance ofY.pestis in China, we evaluated streptomycin susceptibility of 536Y.pestis strains in Chinain vitro using the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) and screened streptomycin resistance-associated genes (strA andstrB) by PCR method. A clinicalY.pestis isolate (S19960127) exhibited high-level resistance to streptomycin (the MIC was 4,096 mg/L). The strain (biovar antiqua) was isolated from a pneumonic plague outbreak in 1996 in Tibet Autonomous Region, China, belonging to theMarmota himalayana Qinghai –Tibet Plateau plague focus. In contrast to previously reported streptomycin resistance mediated by conjugative plasmids, the genome sequencing and allelic replacement experiments demonstrated that anrpsL gene (ribosomal protein S12) mutation with substitution of amino-acid 43 (K43R) was responsible for the high-level resistance to streptomycin in strain S19960127, which is consistent with the mutation reported in some streptomycin-resistantMycobacterium tuberculosis strains. Streptomycin is used as the first-line treatment against plague in many countries. The emergence of streptomycin resistance inY.pesti...
Source: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases - Category: Tropical Medicine Authors: Source Type: research