African Journal of
Biotechnology

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Biotechnol.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1684-5315
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJB
  • Start Year: 2002
  • Published Articles: 12497

Full Length Research Paper

First observation of excision and integration in Class 1 integron in staphylococci

Shengjie Guo1#, Yanmei Li2#, Jin Chu3, Li Wang4, Xihong Zhao5*, Nanjing Zhong6,Shaopeng Qiu1, Junxing Chen1* and Yanyan Li7  
1Department of Urology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510080, China. 2Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center, Guangzhou 510623, China. 3School of Food Science and Nutrition, Faculty of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom. 4Food Safety Key Laboratory of Guangdong Province, College of Food Science, South China Agricultural University, 510642 Guangzhou, China. 5Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Process of Ministry of Education, School of Chemical Engineering and Pharmacy, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan 430073, China. 6Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou 510006, China. 7State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China.
Email: [email protected], [email protected]

  •  Accepted: 24 August 2011
  •  Published: 05 October 2011

Abstract

Class 1 integron had been well-known as a mobile genetic element involved in the antibiotic resistance of various bacteria. Up to date, most of the relevant publications concentrated on gram-negative bacteria, with limited exceptions. However, in recent studies, class 1 integron had been detected in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and methicillin-resistant coagulase negative staphylococci (MRCNS). So in this study, we tested in S. aureus, the class 1 integron mediated excision and integration. We first asked 8 plasmids from previous studies, then established some transformants and perform the excision and integration reaction. As the results revealed, we observed positive excision assay, which had been confirmed by further integration assays. This observation may raise the public attention of integron as a novel antibiotic resistance determinant in gram-positive bacteria, especially in staphylococci.

 

Key words: Staphylococcus aureus, class 1 integron, mobile genetic element, excision and integration, antibiotic resistance.