Partial DNA sequence of a beta-lactamase produced by a Shigella flexneri strain.

A probe was constructed by radioactive labelling, and enzymatically a DNA fragment of plasmid pMAM-1, which codes for a beta-lactamase in Shigella flexneri UCSM 129, was obtained by amplification of a small part of the gene using the polymerase chain reaction technique (PCR). Since previous published work indicated that this beta-lactamase was of the TEM type, the primers used to amplify the gene were two highly conserved DNA regions in all TEM beta-lactamases. A 500 bp DNA probe was obtained which, by hybridization assays, facilitated the identification of restriction fragments of the plasmid containing the beta-lactamase gene. Two DNA fragments were sequenced by the Sanger method adapted to the PCR technique, and the sequence obtained showed a 100% homology with beta-lactamases TEM-1, TEM-2, TEM-13 and TEM-19. An intragenic restriction site, detected for Pst I, suggested that there is only one copy of the beta-lactamase gene per plasmid copy.