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Journal of Bacteriology, October 2009, p. 6345-6351, Vol. 191, No. 20
0021-9193/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00668-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

tISCpe8, an IS1595-Family Lincomycin Resistance Element Located on a Conjugative Plasmid in Clostridium perfringens{triangledown}

Dena Lyras,1,{dagger} Vicki Adams,1,{dagger} Susan A. Ballard,1 Wee L. Teng,1 Pauline M. Howarth,1 Paul K. Crellin,1 Trudi L. Bannam,1 J. Glenn Songer,2 and Julian I. Rood1,2*

Bacterial Pathogenesis Research Group and Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Structural and Functional Microbial Genomics, Department of Microbiology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia,1 Department of Veterinary Science and Microbiology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 857212

Received 21 May 2009/ Accepted 4 August 2009

Clostridium perfringens is a normal gastrointestinal organism that is a reservoir for antibiotic resistance genes and can potentially act as a source from which mobile elements and their associated resistance determinants can be transferred to other bacterial pathogens. Lincomycin resistance in C. perfringens is common and is usually encoded by erm genes that confer macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B resistance. In this study we identified strains that are lincomycin resistant but erythromycin sensitive and showed that the lincomycin resistance determinant was plasmid borne and could be transferred to other C. perfringens isolates by conjugation. The plasmid, pJIR2774, is the first conjugative C. perfringens R-plasmid to be identified that does not confer tetracycline resistance. Further analysis showed that resistance was encoded by the lnuP gene, which encoded a putative lincosamide nucleotidyltransferase and was located on tISCpe8, a functional transposable genetic element that was a member of the IS1595 family of transposon-like insertion sequences. This element had significant similarity to the mobilizable lincomycin resistance element tISSag10 from Streptococcus agalactiae. Like tISSag10, tISCpe8 carries a functional origin of transfer within the resistance gene, allowing the element to be mobilized by the conjugative transposon Tn916. The similarity of these elements and the finding that they both contain an oriT-like region support the hypothesis that conjugation may result in the movement of DNA modules that are not obviously mobile since they are not linked to conjugation or mobilization functions. This process likely plays a significant role in bacterial adaptation and evolution.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Phone: 61 3 9902 9157. Fax: 61 3 9902 9222. E-mail: julian.rood{at}med.monash.edu.au

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 14 August 2009.

{dagger} D.L. and V.A. contributed equally to this work and are both first authors.

Journal of Bacteriology, October 2009, p. 6345-6351, Vol. 191, No. 20
0021-9193/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00668-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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