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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, August 2004, p. 2845-2852, Vol. 48, No. 8
0066-4804/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AAC.48.8.2845-2852.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
DNA Sequence Analysis of Regions Surrounding blaCMY-2 from Multiple Salmonella Plasmid Backbones
W. P. Giles,1 A. K. Benson,2 M. E. Olson,3 R. W. Hutkins,2 J. M. Whichard,4 P. L. Winokur,5 and P. D. Fey3,6*
Departments of Biology,1
Food Science, University of NebraskaLincoln, Lincoln,2
Departments of Internal Medicine,3
Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska,6
Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch, Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia,4
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa and Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Iowa City, Iowa5
Received 17 November 2003/
Returned for modification 7 February 2004/
Accepted 12 April 2004

ABSTRACT
The emergence in the United States of resistance to expanded-spectrum
cephalosporin (e.g., ceftriaxone) within the salmonellae has
been associated primarily with three large (>100-kb) plasmids
(designated types A, B, and C) and one 10.1-kb plasmid (type
D) that carry the
blaCMY-2 gene. In the present study, the distribution
of these four known
blaCMY-2-carrying plasmids among 35 ceftriaxone-resistant
Salmonella isolates obtained from 1998 to 2001 was examined.
Twenty-three of these isolates were
Salmonella enterica serotype
Newport, 10 were
Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium, 1
was
Salmonella enterica serotype Agona, and 1 was
Salmonella enterica serotype Reading. All 23 serotype Newport isolates
carried a type C plasmid, and 5, 4, and 1 serovar Typhimurium
isolate carried type B, A, and C plasmids, respectively. Both
the serotype Agona and serotype Reading isolates carried type
A plasmids. None of the isolates carried a type D plasmid. Hybridization
data suggested that plasmid types A and C were highly related
replicons. DNA sequencing revealed that the region surrounding
blaCMY-2 was highly conserved in all three plasmid types analyzed
(types B, C, and D) and was related to a region surrounding
blaCMY-5 from the
Klebsiella oxytoca plasmid pTKH11. These findings
are consistent with a model in which
blaCMY-2 has been disseminated
primarily through plasmid transfer, and not by mobilization
of the gene itself, to multiple
Salmonella chromosomal backbones.

INTRODUCTION
Salmonellae are a leading cause of food-borne illness throughout
the world. Although the worldwide incidence is not known, in
the United States alone there are an estimated 1.4 million cases
of salmonellosis each year. Nearly all of these cases (95%)
are thought to be due to transmission of the bacteria in contaminated
foods such as eggs, dairy products, produce, and meats (
33).
Typically, salmonellae cause a self-limiting gastroenteritis
that does not require treatment with antibiotics. Antimicrobial
agents are usually not essential for the treatment of patients
with
Salmonella infections; for such patients, antimicrobial
agents may not reduce the severity of the gastrointestinal symptoms
and may prolong the duration of the carrier state (
2). Antimicrobial
agents may be life-saving, however, for patients with severe
invasive infection. Septicemia occurs in approximately 6% of
the 30,000 to 32,000 culture-confirmed cases of salmonellosis
in the United States annually (
19,
33;
http://www.cdc.gov/foodnet;
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/phlisdata/default.htm). Invasive
infections commonly occur in children, particularly in infants.
In the United States, 10% of culture-confirmed infections in
which salmonellae were isolated from the blood or central nervous
system occurred in infants

1 year old (
22,
32). Expanded-spectrum
cephalosporins (e.g., ceftriaxone and cefotaxime) are the antimicrobial
agents of choice for invasive
Salmonella infections of pediatric
patients. Ceftriaxone is the expanded-spectrum cephalosporin
used most often for pediatric patients, because its long half-life
allows for a single daily administration, whereas other antibiotics
require two to three daily doses. The fluoroquinolones (e.g.,
ciprofloxacin) are often used for treatment of salmonellosis
in adults but are not approved for use in pediatric patients.
Decreased susceptibility (MIC, 16 to 32 µg/ml) or resistance (MIC,
64 µg/ml) to ceftriaxone within the salmonellae is a growing public health concern. Since 1991, Salmonella serotypes resistant to expanded-spectrum cephalosporins have been reported worldwide (1, 4, 9, 14, 35). From these isolates, a wide variety of ß-lactamases belonging to Bush groups 1 and 2be have been described (10). In the United States before 1996, all reported cases of infection with ceftriaxone-resistant salmonellae were known or believed to be acquired abroad (19). However, the prevalence of ceftriaxone resistance (or decreased susceptibility) among Salmonella isolates from humans increased more than sevenfold from 1996 to 1998, from 1 of 1,272 (0.1%) isolates in 1996 to 5 of 2,205 (0.2%) isolates in 1997 and 9 of 1,466 (0.6%) in 1998 (14). Year-2001 data from the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) demonstrated that 3% of non-serotype Typhi Salmonella isolates from humans exhibited decreased susceptibility to ceftriaxone while 2% were resistant to ceftriaxone (12). A similar study performed in the state of Nebraska in 2000 demonstrated that decreased susceptibility to ceftriaxone reached 6.5% within the salmonellae and 18% among all Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium isolates (P. D. Fey, S. L. Greenwood, A. R. Sambol, P. C. Iwen, M. E. Rupp, T. J. Safranek, and S. H. Hinrichs, Abstr. 101st Gen. Meet. Am. Soc. Microbiol., abstr. 203, 2001).
In the United States, decreased susceptibility to ceftriaxone in domestically acquired Salmonella infections is almost exclusively mediated through the production of the Citrobacter freundii-derived blaCMY-2 cephamycinase (14, 17, 29, 36). Previous restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and Southern blot experiments have demonstrated that blaCMY-2 is carried on at least three separate large (>100-kb) plasmid replicons termed types A, B, and C as well as on a 10-kb plasmid described by Winokur et al. (11, 38). From 1996 to 1999, these blaCMY-2-carrying plasmids were isolated most frequently from serotype Typhimurium (14). However, since 2000, blaCMY-2-carrying plasmids have been isolated at a substantial rate from isolates representing an apparently highly related strain of Salmonella enterica serotype Newport (6, 17, 29). Decreased susceptibility to ceftriaxone was noted in 25% of all serotype Newport isolates collected from humans in 2001 through the NARMS program (12).
The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which the four known blaCMY-2-carrying plasmid replicons were found in 35 ceftriaxone-resistant Salmonella isolates obtained throughout the United States from 1999 to 2001. In addition, the DNA sequence that surrounded blaCMY-2, which was found to be highly conserved, was analyzed for three separate plasmid replicons.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Strains used in the study.
The 35 ceftriaxone-resistant isolates used in the study are
listed in Table
1. The isolates were collected from 1998 to
2001 through either NARMS or the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory.
Representative
Escherichia coli transformants carrying type
A, B, and C plasmids harboring
blaCMY-2 were as follows: C6/pNF34
(type A), DH/pNF4656 (type C), and C6/pNF1358 (type B) (
11).
DH/pIW759 is a type D plasmid isolated from a
Salmonella enterica serotype Heidelberg strain (porcine origin) in Iowa (
37,
38).
Plasmid transfer.
Plasmids carrying
blaCMY-2 were transferred to
E. coli through
either transformation, conjugation, or electroporation. Transformation
was performed with
E. coli DH5

(Invitrogen, Carlsbad, Calif.)
according to the manufacturer's recommendations, while
E. coli DH10B (Invitrogen) was electroporated by using the method described
by Sheng et al. (
31). Conjugation was performed by using
E. coli C600N (ampicillin susceptible, nalidixic acid resistant)
as previously described (
3,
27). Transformants and electroporants
were selected on Luria-Bertani agar (Difco, Detroit, Mich.)
containing 50 µg of ampicillin (Sigma, St. Louis, Mo.)/ml.
All
blaCMY-2 C600N, DH5

, and DH10B transconjugants, transformants,
or electroporants were named either C6, DH, or D10 (standing
for C600N, DH5

, or DH10B, respectively) followed by the appropriate
wild-type
Salmonella strain designation. Antimicrobial susceptibility
testing of
Salmonella and
E. coli, as well as
E. coli ATCC 25922
(quality control strain), was performed by using disk diffusion
according to NCCLS standards (
25). The following antimicrobial
agents were tested: ampicillin, cefoxitin, ciprofloxacin, tetracycline,
chloramphenicol, kanamycin, streptomycin, gentamicin, sulfamethoxazole,
trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and nalidixic acid. Susceptibility
to ceftriaxone was determined by using the E-test according
to the manufacturer's recommendations (AB-Biodisk, Solna, Sweden).
DNA sequencing.
The plasmid-harbored blaCMY-2 regions from pNF4656 and pNF1358 were cloned and sequenced by first preparing plasmid DNA from E. coli DH/pNF4656 and E. coli C6/pNF1358. DNA was extracted by using a QIAGEN (Valencia, Calif.) large-construct kit. The DNA was air sheared into 1.0- to 1.5-kb fragments according to the manufacturer's recommendations (Invitrogen) and cloned into the pCR 4 blunt-TOPO vector (Invitrogen). The genomic library was transformed into E. coli Top10 cells (Invitrogen), and random clones (approximately 4x coverage) were sequenced on a LiCor (Lincoln, Nebr.) 4000 sequencer by using IR800-labeled T3 and T7 primers (13, 21). Contigs were generated by using Vector NTI Contig Express software (Informax, North Bethesda, Md.).
Molecular methods.
All restriction enzymes used in the study were purchased from Invitrogen. Southern blot hybridizations were performed by standard methods (30) with a blaCMY-2-specific DNA probe labeled with digoxigenin ddUTP (Roche, Indianapolis, Ind.). The primers used to amplify a blaCMY-specific probe, or to detect the gene, have been described previously (11). The primers shown in Table 2 were used to amplify the junction regions between the plasmid sequence and ISEcp1 upstream of blaCMY-2 and between the plasmid sequence and sugE (type B) or ecnR (types C and D) downstream of blaCMY-2 in pNF1358 (type B), pNF4656 (type C), and pIW759 (type D).
PFGE.
Genomic DNA suitable for pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE)
was prepared according to standard methods outlined by PulseNet
(
15,
34).
Salmonella enterica serotype Braenderup H9812 was
used as a standard. The DNA embedded in agarose was digested
with XbaI and electrophoresed on a CHEF DR-III instrument (Bio-Rad,
Richmond, Calif.) by using the following conditions: initial
switching time, 2.2 s; final switching time, 63.8 s; total time,
19 h.
Salmonella plasmid DNA was digested with PstI and electrophoresed
by using the following conditions: initial switching time, 0.1
s; final switching time, 12 s; total time, 6 h. The RFLP patterns
were compared by using Bionumerics software (Applied Maths,
Kortrijk, Belgium) with a 0.75% molecular weight position tolerance.
Nucleotide sequence accession numbers.
The GenBank accession numbers for ISEcp1 and the C. freundii ampR and ampC region are AY125469 and AY125469, respectively. The accession numbers for the DNA sequences of the blaCMY-2 regions from pIW759, pNF1358, and pNF4656 are AY581205, AY581206, and AY581207, respectively.

RESULTS
Plasmid typing.
In a previously published study,
blaCMY-2-carrying plasmids
isolated from three
Salmonella serotypes were placed into three
categories (A, B, and C) based on RFLP and Southern blot analyses
(
11). Thirty-five additional ceftriaxone-resistant isolates
were obtained from the NARMS program (
n = 26) and the Nebraska
Public Health Laboratory (
n = 9) from 1999 to 2001 (Table
1).
Twenty-three of these isolates belonged to serotype Newport,
10 belonged to serotype Typhimurium, and 1 each belonged to
serotypes Agona and Reading. All 35 of the isolates were resistant
to cefoxitin and ampicillin as well as ceftriaxone (Table
1).
Thirty-one (88.5%) of 35 isolates were also resistant to chloramphenicol,
streptomycin, sulfisoxazole, and tetracycline. Three (8.6%)
and six (17.1%) were resistant to kanamycin and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole,
respectively. None of the isolates were resistant to ciprofloxacin,
gentamicin, or nalidixic acid. PCR experiments demonstrated
that all
Salmonella isolates encoded a
blaCMY-2-like ß-lactamase,
as predicted (data not shown) (
11,
14).
Plasmid transfer experiments were performed for all 10 serotype Typhimurium isolates, isolate 2042 (serotype Agona), isolate 2151 (serotype Reading), and 14 serotype Newport isolates (representing the nine PFGE groups delineated; see below) by using either conjugation, transformation, or electroporation (Table 1). For all 26 Salmonella isolates, we were able to transfer plasmid DNA resulting in decreased ceftriaxone susceptibility to E. coli (either C600N, DH5
, or DH10B) by one of the three methods of transfer. PFGE demonstrated that all E. coli transconjugants, transformants, and electroporants (referred to collectively as transformants below) were of the appropriate genomic lineage and were not contaminants (data not shown). Plasmid DNA was isolated from the E. coli transformants, digested with PstI, electrophoresed by PFGE, and analyzed by Southern hybridization using blaCMY-2 as a probe. The resulting RFLP patterns from all transformants were consistent with either a type A, B, or C plasmid as previously described by Carattoli et al. (11). None of the isolates carried a type D plasmid. Figure 1 shows a PstI digest and a subsequent Southern blot after hybridization with blaCMY-2 of the four known plasmid types (A to D). The blaCMY-2 probe hybridizes to an 800-bp fragment in all four plasmid types, whereas it hybridizes to a band of >12 kb in type A plasmids, a 2.5-kb band in type B plasmids, a 3.2-kb band in type C plasmids, and a 9.3-kb band in type D plasmids. Four of the 10 serotype Typhimurium E. coli transformants carried type A plasmids, 5 carried type B plasmids, and 1 carried a type C plasmid. Both D10/2151 (serotype Reading) and D10/2042 (serotype Agona) carried type A plasmids, whereas all serotype Newport E. coli transformants carried type C plasmids. All E. coli transformants that carried type A or type C plasmids were resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics, whereas those that carried type B plasmids were resistant only to ß-lactam antibiotics (ceftriaxone, cefoxitin, and ampicillin) (Table 1). In 22 of 26 isolates, the E. coli transformants were resistant to all of the same antibiotics as wild-type Salmonella.
PFGE.
PFGE was performed on all ceftriaxone-resistant serotype Typhimurium
and serotype Newport isolates. All serotype Typhimurium isolates
had divergent PFGE patterns, as previously demonstrated with
the 1996-to-1998 ceftriaxone-resistant isolates (data not shown)
(
14). In contrast, PFGE patterns were highly related for all
serotype Newport isolates, as has been reported previously (Fig.
2) (
6,
17,
29). Among the 23 serotype Newport isolates, nine
distinguishable but similar RFLP patterns were identified (A
to I) (Table
1). The most highly represented PFGE group was
group A, which consisted of 10 isolates; group B consisted of
3 isolates, and groups C, D, and E consisted of 2 isolates each.
The remaining isolates (
n = 4) had unique PFGE patterns (F to
I). Plasmid typing demonstrated that, regardless of PFGE type,
the
blaCMY-2-carrying type C plasmids found in all serotype
Newport isolates were very similar. Figure
3 shows plasmid DNA
following digestion with PstI and a Southern blot using
blaCMY-2 as a probe for five serotype Newport transformants (representing
four of nine PFGE groups). Note that the only detectable difference
between these plasmids is a

11- to 12-kb band in C6/5561 (Fig.
3A, lane 5) and a 2.7-kb band in DH/pNF4656 (Fig.
3A, lane 2).
For those isolates of serotype Newport for which no attempt
was made to isolate a transformant with decreased susceptibility
to ceftriaxone, wild-type plasmid DNA was isolated and digested
with PstI. In all cases, Southern blot analysis with a
blaCMY-2 probe demonstrated that each serotype Newport isolate carried
a type C plasmid.
Relatedness of plasmid types A and C.
Due to the highly similar PstI RFLP patterns of the type A and
C plasmids, it was hypothesized that they were related replicons.
To address this question, plasmid DNA was prepared from C6/pNF34
(type A) and DH/pNF4656 (type C) and digested with HincII. HincII-digested
C6/pNF1358 was used as a negative control. As predicted, the
HincII RFLP patterns were similar for type A and C plasmids,
whereas that for type B was divergent (Fig.
4). Southern blot
analysis, using pNF4656 as a probe, demonstrated that pNF4656
hybridized to each distinguishable HincII band in pNF34. In
contrast, pNF4656 hybridized to only three HincII bands from
pNF1358.
DNA sequence of region surrounding blaCMY-2.
Plasmid libraries from DH/pNF4656 and C6/pNF1358 were generated
by using the pCR4 blunt-TOPO vector, and

500 clones were sequenced
for both the DH/pNF4656 and C6/pNF1358 libraries (

4
x coverage).
In contrast, the DNA sequence of the
blaCMY-2 region from pIW759
was generated by using primers within
blaCMY-2, and sequencing
was carried out from the native plasmid in both directions.
Subsequent DNA sequencing primers were then constructed through
the DNA sequence generated. After the
blaCMY-2 gene and the
regions surrounding
blaCMY-2 were identified, it became apparent
that these regions were highly conserved in all three plasmid
types and had the same general organization as that already
described for pTKH11, a plasmid carrying
blaCMY-5 isolated from
Klebsiella oxytoca (Fig.
5) (
39). Including IS
Ecp1 (see below)
upstream of
blaCMY-2 to the 5' end of the
blc gene, there was
100% sequence identity among all three plasmid types and 99.3%
sequence identity to the same region in pTKH11.
The sequences of all three plasmids immediately downstream of
blaCMY-2 contained open reading frames (ORFs) that had 96.3
and 96.9% sequence identity, respectively, to
blc and
sugE,
two genes found just downstream of the
C. freundii chromosomal
blaampC gene. In
C. freundii,
blc encodes an outer membrane
lipoprotein whereas
sugE is hypothesized to be a member of the
small multidrug resistance (SMR) family of multidrug efflux
systems (
8,
16,
26). Therefore, neither of these genes is thought
to be involved in
blaCMY-2 regulation (
39). Upstream and adjacent
to
sugE in the type C and D plasmids is partial sequence (364
bp) of an ORF that has 96.7% sequence identity to
ecnR (599
bp), a gene which is found just upstream of
sugE in the
C. freundii chromosome (
7).
ecnR encodes the response regulator for
ecnAB,
which acts as an antidote-toxin gene pair involved in programmed
cell death. Adjacent to and downstream of the truncated
ecnR,
there is a 405-bp region that is shared by type C and D plasmids.
No significant identity to any known bacterial DNA sequence
was found in this region. Adjacent to this common region, an
IS
26 insertion sequence was found in the type C plasmid but
not in the type D plasmid (
23). BLAST searches demonstrated
that DNA sequence generated from pIW759 outside of the
blaCMY-2 region was not found in the DNA sequence from pNF4656 or pNF1358,
suggesting that the type D plasmid is an independent replicon
and was not once part of a composite plasmid with either a type
B or a type C plasmid. Located just upstream of
blaCMY-2 is
an ORF with 99.8% sequence identity with IS
Ecp1 (
20). IS
Ecp1 is inserted at bp 942 of the
C. freundii ampR-ampC promoter
region. The region into which IS
Ecp1 inserts is known to be
an AmpR binding region (Fig.
6). The DNA sequence is divergent
in all three plasmid replicons immediately adjacent to the left
inverted repeat of IS
Ecp1.
blaCMY-2 region junction.
By using known sequence upstream and downstream of the
blaCMY-2-carrying
region (Fig.
5), primers were generated (Table
2) to amplify
the junction regions between the plasmid sequence and IS
Ecp1 on one end (left end) and
sugE (type B) or
ecnR (types C and
D) and the plasmid sequence on the other (right end). Because
sequence downstream of IS
26 was not available (sequencing of
pNF4656 is not complete), the right-end junction primer for
the type C plasmid was designed from sequence within IS
26. Specific
left-end primers designed from pNF4656 (type C) generated the
expected products in all 23 type C plasmids and all 6 type A
plasmids (data not shown). In contrast, the right-end primers
designed from pNF4656 did not amplify an appropriate product
in any of the 23 type C plasmids or in any of the 6 type A plasmids.
Both right-end and left-end primers designed from pNF1358 amplified
the expected products in all five type B plasmids. Left-end
and right-end primers specific for pIW759 (type D) did not amplify
a product in any type A, B, or C plasmid (data not shown).

DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which
the four characterized plasmid replicons that carry
blaCMY-2 were found within 35 expanded-spectrum cephalosporin-resistant
salmonellae collected from 1999 to 2001. These four plasmid
types (types A to D) have been characterized previously in two
separate studies (
11,
38). In the present study, transfer of
blaCMY-2 through conjugation to
E. coli C600N was predictably
successful only when a type B plasmid was being transferred.
Conjugal transfer of type A and C plasmids was less successful,
and transfer frequencies were extremely low (10
8). It
is not known whether the majority of type A and C plasmids were
defective in conjugal transfer or whether these observations
are an experimental artifact. It was determined, however, that
electroporation using the method of Sheng et al. (
31) was an
extremely reliable method of transferring
blaCMY-2-containing
plasmids from salmonellae to
E. coli DH10B.
The observation that similar blaCMY-2-carrying plasmids were observed in two temporally distinct strain sets (the 1996-to-1998 set and the present strain set of 1999 to 2001) suggests that blaCMY-2 has moved to separate genomic backgrounds through plasmid transfer, as opposed to transfer of the element itself to separate plasmids or the chromosome (11). Within serotype Typhimurium, the most prevalent serotype isolated from humans, three plasmid types (types A, B, and C) were found in multiple genomic backgrounds. In contrast, only one blaCMY-2-containing plasmid type, type C, was found within the population of highly related ceftriaxone-resistant serotype Newport isolates. No isolates were found to contain a type D plasmid. Preliminary data suggest that the smaller pIW759-like plasmids are more common within E. coli populations than within salmonellae (P.L. Winokur, unpublished data). Since our Southern hybridization data suggest that plasmid types A and C are highly related, it appears that two variants of the same plasmid are mostly responsible for the dissemination of blaCMY-2 within ceftriaxone-resistant salmonellae in the United States (30 of 35 isolates belong to either type A or type C). Primers designed to identify the junction regions between the blaCMY-2 region and plasmid sequence demonstrate that the junction near ISEcp1 is conserved in type A and C plasmids. However, downstream, near ecnR, all 30 type A or C plasmids diverge from the representative type C plasmid, pNF4656. This result is not unexpected, since one of the primers used to amplify the right-end junction from pNF4656 was designed within a mobile element, IS26. Further DNA sequencing is needed to determine whether the right-end junction sequence within type A and C plasmids is conserved. One potential reason for the RFLP differences seen between type A and C plasmids is the fact that type A plasmids contain at least twice as many IS26 elements as type C plasmids (data not shown).
Recently, Poirel et al. reported that ISEcp1B, an insertion sequence element highly related to ISEcp1, was found upstream of blaCTX-M-19 in a Klebsiella pneumoniae isolate obtained in Vietnam (28). It was hypothesized, but not experimentally demonstrated, that ISEcp1B was responsible for the movement of blaCTX-M-19, because a separate inverted repeat with consistent nucleotide identity to the right inverted repeat of ISEcp1B was found downstream of blaCTX-M-19. In addition, primer extension studies demonstrated the presence of a promoter element just upstream of the right inverted repeat that directed the transcription of blaCTX-M-19. Therefore, ISEcp1B was hypothesized to be responsible not only for the movement of blaCTX-M-19 but also for its expression.
The DNA sequence comparison between the ampR-ampC intergenic promoter region in C. freundii and the region upstream of blaCMY-2 in pNF4656 is shown in Fig. 6. This analysis demonstrated that ISEcp1 inserted into AmpR binding region 1 in pNF4656. DNA binding studies have demonstrated that AmpR binds to region 1 but binds to region 2 only in the presence of region 1 (5, 18). These data strongly suggest that AmpR would not be able to activate or induce transcription from blaCMY-2 in pNF4656 if present. The proposed promoter from C. freundii blaampC is present in pNF4656, but it is not known what effect ISEcp1 has on its function. The promoter sequence found within ISEcp1B, which has been shown to drive the transcription of blaCTX-M-19, is also found in ISEcp1 upstream of blaCMY-2. The effect of this putative promoter sequence on blaCMY-2 transcription is unknown and warrants further study. In contrast to what was found for the relationship of ISEcp1B and blaCTX-M-19, no separate inverted repeat was found downstream of the blaCMY-2 region in any of the three plasmids sequenced. Multiple experiments attempting to demonstrate mobility of the blaCMY-2 region from pNF1358 to other plasmids were not successful (data not shown).
In conclusion, this work demonstrates that blaCMY-2 is spread primarily through plasmid transfer and not through the mobilization of a transposon or integron to multiple plasmid replicons and chromosomes. These findings were unexpected, because Morosini and colleagues have demonstrated that salmonellae carrying a plasmid-encoded, Enterobacter cloacae-derived AmpC ß-lactamase had a reduction in growth rate and were less invasive by an in vitro cell invasion assay (24). The pathogenesis of Salmonella spp. is dependent on the organism's ability to adhere to and invade intestinal epithelial cells. Therefore, one would predict that the prevalence of AmpC-producing salmonellae would be very low, because these strains would be less physiologically fit. Alternatively, the predicted decreased fitness may be counterbalanced by the selective pressure of antimicrobial usage, compensatory mutations within certain genomic backgrounds of Salmonella, varying effects on invasiveness and/or fitness associated with different species-derived AmpC ß-lactamases, and/or regulation of the blaampC gene itself (i.e., promoter strength).

ADDENDUM IN PROOF
Hossain et al. have recently described an
S. enterica serotype
Typhimurium strain that carried a
blaCMY-7 gene (A. Hossain,
M. D. Reisbig, and N. D. Hanson, J. Antimicrob. Chemother.
53: 964-970, 2004). A promoter within an IS
Ecp1-like element, which
was located just upstream of
blaCMY-7 at the identical nucleotide
position as described in the present study, was shown to drive
transcription of
blaCMY-7.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
W.P.G. is supported through a USDA National Needs Fellowship.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985400 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198-5400. Phone: (402) 559-2122. Fax: (402) 559-5581. E-mail:
pfey{at}unmc.edu.


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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, August 2004, p. 2845-2852, Vol. 48, No. 8
0066-4804/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AAC.48.8.2845-2852.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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