Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Vol 41, 341-347, Copyright © 1998 by The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
E Severina, A Severin and A Tomasz
The rapid spread of multidrug-resistant bacterial pathogens necessitates
the search for alternative antibacterial agents. We examined the efficacy
of the antibiotic nisin against 56 multidrug- resistant isolates of
Streptococcus pneumoniae, 33 Staphylococcus aureus and 29
vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus faecalis
isolates. The test strains represented a large variety of clonal types (as
determined by a combination of DNA fingerprints) isolated from a variety of
geographic sources, and included some of the major internationally-spread
multiresistant epidemic clones of S. pneumoniae and methicillin-resistant
S. aureus (MRSA), MRSA strains resistant to over 16 generically distinct
antibacterial agents, and enterococcal strains resistant to all currently
available chemotherapeutic agents including glycopeptides. In the
overwhelming majority of cases, treatment of growing cultures with nisin at
1 mg/L (S. pneumoniae) or 10-20 mg/L (in MRSA and enterococci) caused
extensive (10(3)- to 10(4)-fold) loss of viable titre accompanied by
various degrees of loss in the optical density of the cultures, which was
most extensive in pneumococci (>90%) and least extensive (40-50%) in
enterococci. Nevertheless, extensive variation in rates of nisin-induced
autolysis was observed in each bacterial species. Serial exposure of a
penicillin-susceptible strain of S. pneumoniae to nisin (1 mg/L) in liquid
culture resulted in the rapid appearance of stable nisin-resistant mutants
in which the MIC increased from 0.4 to 6.4 mg/L and the resistance trait
was transferable by genetic transformation.
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Antibacterial efficacy of nisin against multidrug-resistant Gram- positive pathogens
The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10021, USA.
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