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Journal of Bacteriology, December 2000, p. 6798-6805, Vol. 182, No. 23
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Distribution of the Mosaic Structured
murM Genes among Natural Populations of
Streptococcus pneumoniae
Sergio R.
Filipe,1,2
Elena
Severina,1,
and
Alexander
Tomasz1,*
Laboratory of Microbiology, The Rockefeller
University, New York, New York 10021,1 and
Molecular Genetics Unit, Instituto de Tecnologia
Química e Biológica, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Oeiras,
Portugal2
Received 28 June 2000/Accepted 20 September 2000
The presence and sequence variation of the murM gene
were studied in a large collection (814 strains) of genetically diverse Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates, which included 27 different serogroups and both penicillin-resistant (423 isolates, 67 pulsed-field gel electrophoretic [PFGE] types) and intermediately
penicillin-resistant (165 isolates, 66 PFGE types) and
penicillin-susceptible (226 isolates, 135 PFGE types) strains.
Diversity of the murM sequences was tested by hybridization
with mainly two kinds of probes: one derived from the amplification of
the nucleotide sequence between nucleotides 201 and 624 in the
penicillin-susceptible laboratory strain R36A (murMA probe)
and a second probe that amplified the comparable, highly divergent
sequence in the penicillin-resistant strain Pen6 (murMB
probe). The great majority of the strains (761 of 814), including both
penicillin-susceptible and penicillin-resistant isolates, reacted
exclusively with the murMA probe. A smaller group of
penicillin-resistant strains (48 of 814 isolates) reacted only with the
murMB DNA probe, and an additional 5 isolates reacted with
both probes. High-pressure liquid chromatography analysis of the
peptidoglycan of strains hybridizing with murMB showed that
they invariably contained an increased proportion of branched peptides.
Complete sequencing of murM from a group of
penicillin-resistant isolates allowed the identification of a number of
different murMB alleles that differed in the length and
exact position of the divergent (Pen6 type) sequences within the
particular murM. The close similarity of these divergent
sequences in the various murM alleles suggests a possible
common heterologous origin.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Laboratory of
Microbiology, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Ave., New York, NY 10021. Phone: (212) 327-8278. Fax: (212) 327-8688. E-mail:
tomasz{at}mail.rockefeller.edu.

Permanent address: Institute of Theoretical and Experimental
Biophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushchino, Moscow Region,
142292
Russia.
Journal of Bacteriology, December 2000, p. 6798-6805, Vol. 182, No. 23
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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