Antimicrobial resistance of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli with special reference to plasmid profiles of Japanese clinical isolates

A total of 111 clinical isolates of Campylobacter jejuni and 10 clinical isolates of Campylobacter coli were characterized by their susceptibility to nine antimicrobial agents and by their plasmid profiles on agarose gel electrophoresis. All of the C. jejuni isolates were susceptible to chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, kanamycin, and nalidixic acid, but 55% were tetracycline resistant. In the 10 C. coli isolates, a high prevalence of multiple-antibiotic resistance was noted. Plasmids were found in 82% of the tetracycline-resistant and 15% of the tetracycline-susceptible C. jejuni isolates. Tetracycline resistance in six randomly selected C. jejuni isolates, which contained 50- or 135-kilobase (kb) plasmids, was transferred by conjugation to a Campylobacter fetus subsp. fetus recipient with recovery of a 50- or a 45-kb plasmid from transconjugants. From one multiple-antibiotic-resistant C. coli isolate, resistance to tetracycline, kanamycin, and chloramphenicol was transferred concomitantly with a 58-kb plasmid, pNR9589. Nonconjugative 98-kb plasmids, pNR9131 and pNR9581, from C. coli isolates with resistance to tetracycline, kanamycin, and erythromycin were shown by cloning experiments to code for at least kanamycin resistance. Restriction digests revealed that 50-kb plasmids from tetracycline-resistant C. jejuni isolates were identical, although plasmids from multiple-antibiotic-resistant C. coli isolates shared partial DNA homology to each other. Cloning of the kanamycin and chloramphenicol resistance genes of pNR9589 into Escherichia coli showed that the two genes are closely linked or clustered. Double-digestion analysis of the fragments encoding the kanamycin resistance of pNR9131, pNR9581, and pNR9589 showed that these three plasmids contain a common fragment related to kanamycin resistance.