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JAC Advance Access originally published online on January 20, 2009
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 2009 63(3):438-442; doi:10.1093/jac/dkn542
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Original research

SXT-related integrating conjugative element and IncC plasmids in Vibrio cholerae O1 strains in Eastern Africa

N. Pugliese1, F. Maimone2, M. Scrascia1, S. F. Materu3 and Carlo Pazzani1,*

1 Dipartimento di Genetica e Microbiologia, Università di Bari, Via G. Amendola 165/A 70126, Bari, Italy 2 Interuniversity Research Center for Sustainable Development, Università ‘La Sapienza', Palazzo Doria Pamphilj 00038, Valmontone, Roma, Italy 3 African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), PO Box 30125, Nairobi, Kenya

Received 10 September 2008; returned 31 October 2008; revised 25 November 2008; accepted 16 December 2008

* Corresponding author. Tel: +39-080-5443379; Fax: +39-080-5443386; E-mail: pazzani{at}biologia.uniba.it

Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the extent of resistance patterns and associated mobile genetic elements in epidemic V. cholerae O1 El Tor strains isolated from Eastern Africa in the late 1990s.

Methods: Self-transmissible genetic elements and associated clusters of genes encoding resistance were detected by conjugation experiments. Detection of SXT-related integrating conjugative elements (ICEs) and associated antibiotic resistance genes was performed by PCR to amplify the SXT element-integrase gene (int), right SXT element-chromosome junction (attP-prfC) and genes conferring resistance to chloramphenicol (floR), sulfamethoxazole (sulII), streptomycin (strA) and trimethoprim (dfrA1). Genomic relatedness was established by random amplified polymorphic DNA patterns.

Results: Of 224 strains analysed, 200 isolates exhibited resistance to four or more antimicrobials. An IncC plasmid, encoding resistance to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, streptomycin, sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim, conferred multidrug resistance to 113 strains isolated from Somalia and Ethiopia, whereas an SXT-related ICE, encoding resistance to chloramphenicol, streptomycin, sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim, conferred multidrug resistance to 74 strains isolated from Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania.

Conclusions: This study has shown the spread of SXT-related ICEs among V. cholerae O1 African isolates. It has also highlighted the role of two distinct genetic elements in conferring multiple resistance to the two distinct groups of V. cholerae O1 strains that, in the late 1990s, spread through Eastern Africa, a critical geographic region for the persistence and transmission of cholera to the entire continent.

Keywords: conjugation , V. cholerae , antimicrobial resistance , mobile elements


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