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GENETIC LINKAGE BETWEEN SEROGROUP SPECIFICITY AND ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE IN NEISSERIA GONORRHOEAE
Author(s) -
BYGDEMAN SOLGUN,
BÄCKMAN MARIANNE,
DANIELSSON DAN,
NORGREN MARI
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
acta pathologica microbiologica scandinavica series b: microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0108-0180
DOI - 10.1111/j.1699-0463.1982.tb00112.x
Subject(s) - microbiology and biotechnology , neisseria gonorrhoeae , antibiotics , penicillin , antibiotic resistance , biology , strain (injury) , tetracycline , virology , anatomy
In previous works statistically significant differences were demonstrated in antibiotic susceptibility between gonococcal strains of the recently described W serogroups, W I, W II and W III, respectively. Strains of serogroup W I were almost always sensitive to penicillin and other antibiotics while those of the W II and W III serogroups showed a higher incidence of decreased susceptibility. Transformation experiments were therefore undertaken with an antibiotic sensitive serogroup W I gonococcal strain as recipient and a multi‐resistant W II strain as DNA‐donor. Transformants, with increased resistance to penicillin and several other antibiotics as compared with the recipient, acquired the same serogroup specificity as the W II donor. With one of these W II transformants as donor and the sensitive W I strain as recipient all transformants acquired the same antibiotic susceptibility pattern as well as the same serogroup as the donor. SDS‐PAGE, performed on sarkosyl extracted outer membrane proteins from donor, recipient and some transformants, showed an increase in the molecular weight of the Protein I of the outer membrane of the W II transformants as compared with that of the recipient strain. In rocket‐line and crossed‐line Immunoelectrophoresis the W II transformants could not be distinguished from the W II donor strain. A genetic linkage between antibiotic multi‐resistance and serogroup W II specificity was thus shown. This is in agreement with the demonstrated higher incidence of W II strains with increased antibiotic resistance as compared with that of serogroup W I strains.