Inhibitor-Resistant TEM β-Lactamases: Revision of the TEM-41 Sequence

We have recently found that one of the β-lactamases reported in the paper by Stapleton et al. on incidence and mechanisms of resistance to the combination of amoxicillin and clavulanic acid in Escherichia coli (1) was misidentified. Redetermination of the DNA sequence of the TEM gene from strain 51864, in both the French and British laboratories, has revealed that the nucleotides corresponding to the amino acid at position 244 are AGC. Thus, the amino acid at this position is serine rather than threonine and the enzyme is TEM-30 and not TEM-41.