JAC Advance Access originally published online on October 23, 2006
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 2006 58(6):1254-1256; doi:10.1093/jac/dkl418
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Fusidic acid resistance, mediated by fusB, in bovine coagulase-negative staphylococci
1 Department of Food Safety and Infection Biology, The Norwegian School of Veterinary Science Oslo, Norway 2 TINE Norwegian Dairies BA, R&D Centre Oslo, Norway 3 Section of Bacteriology, National Veterinary Institute Oslo, Norway
Received 22 June 2006; returned 25 July 2006; revised 18 September 2006; accepted 18 September 2006
*Correspondence address. Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, PO Box 4404 Nydalen, N-0403 Oslo, Norway. Tel: +47-21-62-28-09; Fax +47-21-62-28-01; E-mail: siamak.yazdankhah{at}fhi.no
Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the occurrence of fusidic acid resistance, mediated by the fusB gene, among coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) isolated from bovine mastitis.
Methods: A total of 113 CoNS isolates were screened for susceptibility to fusidic acid by using a disc diffusion method. The fusB gene was detected by using PCR and subsequent DNA sequencing. The localization of fusB was determined by hybridization.
Results: The fusB gene was detected in 3 of 11 fusidic acid-resistant bovine CoNS isolates. The organization of the fusB downstream region on a 40 kb plasmid in a Staphylococcus haemolyticus isolate (288/96) was highly similar to the previously reported organization of fusB on plasmid pUB101 from a Staphylococcus aureus isolate of human origin. The fusB gene was chromosomally located in the remaining two isolates.
Conclusions: Fusidic acid resistance mediated by fusB is not the dominant resistance mechanism in fusidic acid-resistant CoNS studied in this work. The similarity between the organization of the fusB downstream region in S. haemolyticus (isolate 288/96) and on plasmid pUB101 from an S. aureus isolate of human origin indicates a common ancestral origin of these genes.
Keywords: bovine mastitis , plasmid , S. haemolyticus