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Journal of Bacteriology, September 1998, p. 4886-4892, Vol. 180, No. 18
0021-9193/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Efficient Transfer of the Pheromone-Independent Enterococcus faecium Plasmid pMG1 (Gmr) (65.1 Kilobases) to Enterococcus Strains during Broth Mating

Yasuyoshi Ike,1,2,* Koichi Tanimoto,1 Haruyoshi Tomita,1 Kunio Takeuchi,1 and Shuhei Fujimoto1

Department of Microbiology1 and Laboratory of Bacterial Drug Resistance,2 Gunma University School of Medicine, Maebashi, Gunma, Japan

Received 11 May 1998/Accepted 21 July 1998

Plasmid pMG1 (65.1 kb) was isolated from a gentamicin-resistant Enterococcus faecium clinical isolate and was found to encode gentamicin resistance. EcoRI restriction of pMG1 produced five fragments, A through E, with molecular sizes of 50.2, 11.5, 2.0, 0.7, and 0.7 kb, respectively. The clockwise order of the fragments was ACDEB. pMG1 transferred at high frequency to Enterococcus strains in broth mating. pMG1 transferred between Enterococcus faecalis strains, between E. faecium strains, and between E. faecium and E. faecalis strains at a frequency of approximately 10-4 per donor cell after 3 h of mating. The pMG1 transfers were not induced by the exposure of the donor cell to culture filtrates of plasmid-free E. faecalis FA2-2 or an E. faecium strain. Mating aggregates were not observed by the naked eye during broth mating. Small mating aggregates of several cells in the broth matings were observed by microscopy, while no aggregates of donor cells which had been exposed to a culture filtrate of E. faecalis FA2-2 or an E. faecium strain were observed, even by microscopy. pMG1 DNA did not show any homology in Southern hybridization with that of the pheromone-responsive plasmids and broad-host-range plasmids pAMbeta 1 and pIP501. These results indicate that there is another efficient transfer system in the conjugative plasmids of Enterococcus and that this system is different from the pheromone-induced transfer system of E. faecalis plasmids.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology, Gunma University School of Medicine, Showa-machi 3-39-22, Maebashi, Gunma 371-8511, Japan. Phone: 81-27-220-7990. Fax: 81-27-220-7996. E-mail: yasuike{at}sb.gunma-u.ac.jp.

Journal of Bacteriology, September 1998, p. 4886-4892, Vol. 180, No. 18
0021-9193/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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