Skip to main content
PMC home page
Applied and Environmental Microbiology logoLink to Applied and Environmental Microbiology
. 1991 Apr;57(4):1018–1025. doi: 10.1128/aem.57.4.1018-1025.1991

Selection of colony, plasmid, and virulence variants of Staphylococcus epidermidis NRC853 during growth in continuous cultures exposed to erythromycin.

M A DeGuglielmo 1, C G George 1, W E Kloos 1
PMCID: PMC182839  PMID: 2059029

Abstract

A continuous-culture system was developed to study changes in the structure of Staphylococcus epidermidis populations exposed to subminimum inhibitory concentrations of erythromycin. Continuous-culture experiments were carried out in a dextrose-free, tryptic soy broth medium supplemented with lactic acid and sodium lactate (MTSB-D). The multiresistant (penicillin-, tetracycline-, and erythromycin-resistant) S. epidermidis strain NRC853 was subjected to a series of experiments: (i) growth individually in continuous culture in the absence and presence of erythromycin and (ii) growth in mixed culture with the erythromycin-susceptible S. epidermidis strain NRC852 in the absence and presence of erythromycin. Strain NRC853 produced colony morphology variants during continuous culture in the presence of 0.05 and 0.1 microgram of erythromycin per ml. Variants (A, B, and C) were different from their wild-type parent on the basis of colony size, sector pattern, and/or the ability to transmit light. A variants rapidly lost a 2.7-MDa tetracycline resistance plasmid. B and C variants formed an ermC plasmid multimer series from unit size to a 16-mer and exhibited an approximately twofold increase in erythromycin MIC over that of the wild-type parent. They slowly lost the tetracycline resistance plasmid. The small-colony B variant demonstrated an increased virulence in the neonatal mouse weight gain test and an increase in fibronectin binding compared with the wild-type parent. The presence of a competing strain drastically increased the frequency of all variants.

Full text

PDF
1018

Images in this article

1022Image
on p.1022
1023Image
on p.1023

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Baddour L. M., Christensen G. D. Prosthetic valve endocarditis due to small-colony staphylococcal variants. Rev Infect Dis. 1987 Nov-Dec;9(6):1168–1174. doi: 10.1093/clinids/9.6.1168. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Baddour L. M., Simpson W. A., Weems J. J., Jr, Hill M. M., Christensen G. D. Phenotypic selection of small-colony variant forms of Staphylococcus epidermidis in the rat model of endocarditis. J Infect Dis. 1988 Apr;157(4):757–763. doi: 10.1093/infdis/157.4.757. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Devriese L. A., Schleifer K. H., Adegoke G. O. Identification of coagulase-negative staphylococci from farm animals. J Appl Bacteriol. 1985 Jan;58(1):45–55. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2672.1985.tb01428.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Hamory B. H., Parisi J. T., Hutton J. P. Staphylococcus epidermidis: a significant nosocomial pathogen. Am J Infect Control. 1987 Apr;15(2):59–74. doi: 10.1016/0196-6553(87)90003-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Kloos W. E., Musselwhite M. S. Distribution and persistence of Staphylococcus and Micrococcus species and other aerobic bacteria on human skin. Appl Microbiol. 1975 Sep;30(3):381–385. doi: 10.1128/am.30.3.381-395.1975. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Kloos W. E. Natural populations of the genus Staphylococcus. Annu Rev Microbiol. 1980;34:559–592. doi: 10.1146/annurev.mi.34.100180.003015. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Kloos W. E., Schleifer K. H. Simplified scheme for routine identification of human Staphylococcus species. J Clin Microbiol. 1975 Jan;1(1):82–88. doi: 10.1128/jcm.1.1.82-88.1975. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Kloos W. E., Wolfshohl J. F. Identification of Staphylococcus species with the API STAPH-IDENT system. J Clin Microbiol. 1982 Sep;16(3):509–516. doi: 10.1128/jcm.16.3.509-516.1982. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Lampson B. C., Parisi J. T. Naturally occurring Staphylococcus epidermidis plasmid expressing constitutive macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B resistance contains a deleted attenuator. J Bacteriol. 1986 May;166(2):479–483. doi: 10.1128/jb.166.2.479-483.1986. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Macrina F. L., Kopecko D. J., Jones K. R., Ayers D. J., McCowen S. M. A multiple plasmid-containing Escherichia coli strain: convenient source of size reference plasmid molecules. Plasmid. 1978 Jun;1(3):417–420. doi: 10.1016/0147-619x(78)90056-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Marsh P. D., Selwyn S. Continuous-culture studies of interactions among human skin-commensal bacteria. J Med Microbiol. 1977 May;10(2):261–265. doi: 10.1099/00222615-10-2-261. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Marsh P. D., Selwyn S. Studies on antagonism between human skin bacteria. J Med Microbiol. 1977 May;10(2):161–169. doi: 10.1099/00222615-10-2-161. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Naidu A. S., Paulsson M., Wadström T. Particle agglutination assays for rapid detection of fibronectin, fibrinogen, and collagen receptors on Staphylococcus aureus. J Clin Microbiol. 1988 Aug;26(8):1549–1554. doi: 10.1128/jcm.26.8.1549-1554.1988. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Pfaller M. A., Herwaldt L. A. Laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological aspects of coagulase-negative staphylococci. Clin Microbiol Rev. 1988 Jul;1(3):281–299. doi: 10.1128/cmr.1.3.281. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Projan S. J., Monod M., Narayanan C. S., Dubnau D. Replication properties of pIM13, a naturally occurring plasmid found in Bacillus subtilis, and of its close relative pE5, a plasmid native to Staphylococcus aureus. J Bacteriol. 1987 Nov;169(11):5131–5139. doi: 10.1128/jb.169.11.5131-5139.1987. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Switalski L. M., Rydén C., Rubin K., Ljungh A., Hök M., Wadström T. Binding of fibronectin to Staphylococcus strains. Infect Immun. 1983 Nov;42(2):628–633. doi: 10.1128/iai.42.2.628-633.1983. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Wahl G. M., Stern M., Stark G. R. Efficient transfer of large DNA fragments from agarose gels to diazobenzyloxymethyl-paper and rapid hybridization by using dextran sulfate. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1979 Aug;76(8):3683–3687. doi: 10.1073/pnas.76.8.3683. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Wieslander L. A simple method to recover intact high molecular weight RNA and DNA after electrophoretic separation in low gelling temperature agarose gels. Anal Biochem. 1979 Oct 1;98(2):305–309. doi: 10.1016/0003-2697(79)90145-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Applied and Environmental Microbiology are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES