Department of Microbiology, Hospital Clínic, School of Medicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2010 Mar;54(3):1218-25. doi: 10.1128/AAC.00944-09. Epub 2009 Dec 14.
Elevated levels of fluoroquinolone resistance are frequently found among Escherichia coli clinical isolates. This study investigated the antibiotic resistance mechanisms of strain NorE5, derived in vitro by exposing an E. coli clinical isolate, PS5, to two selection steps with increasing concentrations of norfloxacin. In addition to the amino acid substitution in GyrA (S83L) present in PS5, NorE5 has an amino acid change in ParC (S80R). Furthermore, we now find by Western blotting that NorE5 has a multidrug resistance phenotype resulting from the overexpression of the antibiotic resistance efflux pump AcrAB-TolC. Microarray and gene fusion analyses revealed significantly increased expression in NorE5 of soxS, a transcriptional activator of acrAB and tolC. The high soxS activity is attributable to a frameshift mutation that truncates SoxR, rendering it a constitutive transcriptional activator of soxS. Furthermore, microarray and reverse transcription-PCR analyses showed that mdtG (yceE), encoding a putative efflux pump, is overexpressed in the resistant strain. SoxS, MarA, and Rob activated an mdtG::lacZ fusion, and SoxS was shown to bind to the mdtG promoter, showing that mdtG is a member of the marA-soxS-rob regulon. The mdtG marbox sequence is in the backward or class I orientation within the promoter, and its disruption resulted in a loss of inducibility by MarA, SoxS, and Rob. Thus, chromosomal mutations in parC and soxR are responsible for the increased antibiotic resistance of NorE5.
氟喹诺酮类药物耐药水平在大肠杆菌临床分离株中经常升高。本研究通过体外暴露于两种选择步骤,增加诺氟沙星浓度,研究了临床分离株 PS5 衍生的菌株 NorE5 的抗生素耐药机制。除了 PS5 中存在的 GyrA(S83L)氨基酸取代外,NorE5 还在 ParC 中发生了氨基酸变化(S80R)。此外,我们现在通过 Western blot 发现,NorE5 具有多药耐药表型,这是由于抗生素耐药外排泵 AcrAB-TolC 的过度表达所致。微阵列和基因融合分析显示,NorE5 中 soxS 的表达显著增加,soxS 是 acrAB 和 tolC 的转录激活因子。高 soxS 活性归因于移码突变,该突变截断了 SoxR,使其成为 soxS 的组成型转录激活因子。此外,微阵列和反转录-PCR 分析表明,mdtG(yceE),编码一种假定的外排泵,在耐药菌株中过度表达。SoxS、MarA 和 Rob 激活了 mdtG::lacZ 融合,并且 SoxS 与 mdtG 启动子结合,表明 mdtG 是 marA-soxS-rob 调控子的成员。mdtG marbox 序列在启动子中处于反向或 I 类方向,其破坏导致 MarA、SoxS 和 Rob 的诱导性丧失。因此,parC 和 soxR 染色体突变导致 NorE5 抗生素耐药性增加。