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. 1973 Mar;3(3):369–372. doi: 10.1128/aac.3.3.369

Cephalosporinase Activity in Bacteroides fragilis

Victor E Del Bene a,1, W Edmund Farrar Jr a,1
PMCID: PMC444417  PMID: 4790596

Abstract

Cephalosporinase activity was demonstrated in all of 10 strains of Bacteroides fragilis investigated. Low rates of hydrolysis of cephalosporins (0.25 to 3.5 μmol of cephaloridine per h per 109 cells) were found, but no activity against penicillin substrates was detected. In two strains the cephalosporinase activity was increased 40-and 80-fold by growing cells in the presence of penicillin. No permeability barrier for these antibiotics was demonstrated. In most cases the substrate profile showed decreasing activity in the following order: cephaloridine > cephalothin > cephaloglycin > cephalexin. The cephalosporinase from these organisms differed from that found in facultative and aerobic gram-negative bacilli in that it was inhibited by both cloxacillin and p-chloromercuribenzoate. Among nine strains of Bacteroides fragilis subspecies fragilis, correlation was found between in vitro resistance to cephaloridine and amount of β-lactamase activity in sonically disrupted cells.

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Selected References

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

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