Hitchhiking genes and boundaries of AmpC amplicons during amoxicillin resistance development in E. coli.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Duplication and amplification of the chromosomal beta-lactamase gene ampC is a main mechanism for amoxicillin resistance development in E. coli. When E. coli is exposed to step-wise increasing amoxicillin concentrations, a fragment carrying the ampC gene can be amplified to high levels, resulting in up to 500 fold increased transcription of ampC. The size of the amplicon varies between replicates and it is not clear what determines the size and boundaries of the fragment. This study investigates the hypothesis that there are conserved amplicon boundaries and hitchhiking genes in amplified fragment.

Results

Seven mutants were constructed with a deletion of conserved flank-site located genes or hitchhiking genes (∆yjeI, ∆sugE, ∆blc, ∆epmA, ∆yjeM, ∆PecnB and ∆ecnB).

SUBMITTER: Nong L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12625342 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature