The DOI matches its Crossref record.
New mechanism for methicillin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus: clinical isolates that lack the PBP 2a gene and contain normal penicillin-binding proteins with modified penicillin-binding capacity
Abstract
Seventeen clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus (from the United States and Europe) selected for low (borderline)-level methicillin resistance (MIC of methicillin, 2 to 4 micrograms/ml; MIC of oxacillin, 0.5 to 8 micrograms/ml) were examined for their mechanisms of resistance. Five strains were typical of heterogeneous S. aureus: they gave positive reactions with a DNA probe specific for mec and contained a small fraction (10(-6] of highly resistant cells (MIC, greater than 100 micrograms/ml). The rest of the 12 strains were homogeneous with respect to their methicillin resistance: the MIC of methicillin for all cells was 2 to 4 micrograms/ml, and no cells for which MICs were 50 micrograms/ml or higher were detectable (less than 10(-9]. None of these strains reacted with the mec-specific DNA probe. One representative strain of each group was characterized in more detail. Strain CDC-1, prototype of heterogeneous methicillin-resistant S. aureus, contained penicillin-binding protein (PBP) 2a; its DNA could transform a methicillin-susceptible and novobiocin-resistant recipient to methicillin resistance with ca. 35% linkage to Novr. Introduction of the "factor X" determinant (K. Murakami and A. Tomasz, J. Bacteriol. 171:874-879, 1989) converted strain CDC-1 to high, homogeneous resistance. Strain CDC-6, prototype of the second group of isolates, showed completely homogeneous MICs of methicillin, oxacillin, and cefotaxime. The strain contained modified "normal" PBPs: PBPs 1 and 2 showed low drug reactivity (and/or cellular amounts), and PBP 4 was present in elevated amounts. No PBP 2a could be detected. DNA isolated from strain CDC-6 could transform the methicillin-susceptible and novobiocin-resistant strain to methicillin resistance in a multistep fashion, but this resistance showed no genetic linkage to the Nov marker. We suggest that staphylococci with borderline resistance may contain at least three different classes of mechanism: heterogeneous, methicillin-resistant S. aureus, PBPs of modified drug reactivities, and the previously reported hyperproduction of beta-lactamase (L.K. McDougal and C. Thornsberry, J. Clin Microbiol. 23:832-839, 1986).
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“The most frequent causes are mutations in the promoter region of the pbp4 gene and in the gdpP (phosphodiesterase c-di-AMP regulator) and yjbH (disulfide stress effector) genes, conditioning the overproduction of PBP4 protein [68,69,70].”
From Molecular Mechanisms of Drug Resistance in Staphylococcus aureus (2022) · cites this paper as [69]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cited by
Mechanisms of Methicillin Resistance in Staphylococcus aureus
Peacock, S. J., & Paterson, G. K. (2015) · Annual Review of Biochemistry · doi:10.1146/annurev-biochem-060614-034516 · Cited by 656
Molecular Mechanisms of Drug Resistance in Staphylococcus aureus
Mlynarczyk-Bonikowska, B., Kowalewski, C., Krolak-Ulinska, A., & Marusza, W. (2022) · International Journal of Molecular Sciences · doi:10.3390/ijms23158088 · Cited by 412
Metadata
- Authors
- Tomasz, A., Drugeon, H. B., de Lencastre, H. M., Jabes, D., McDougall, L., & Bille, J.
- Affiliations
- Rockefeller University, New York, New York 10021.
- Venue
- Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
- Publisher
- American Society for Microbiology
- Published
- 1989-11
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1869-1874
- ISSN
- 0066-4804
- 1098-6596
- Cited by
- 223
- References
- 0
- Language
- en
- Licence
- journals.asm.org/non-commercial-tdm-license (tdm)
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: New mechanism for methicillin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus: clinical isolates that lack the PBP 2a gene and contain normal penicillin-binding proteins with modified penicillin-binding capacity. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1128/aac.33.11.1869
- The paper
- Tomasz, A., Drugeon, H. B., de Lencastre, H. M., Jabes, D., McDougall, L., & Bille, J. (1989). New mechanism for methicillin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus: clinical isolates that lack the PBP 2a gene and contain normal penicillin-binding proteins with modified penicillin-binding capacity. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. https://doi.org/10.1128/aac.33.11.1869
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.