Azithromycin Resistance through Interspecific Acquisition of an Epistasis-Dependent Efflux Pump Component and Transcriptional Regulator in Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

ABSTRACT: Mosaic interspecifically acquired alleles of the multiple transferable resistance (mtr) efflux pump operon correlate with increased resistance to azithromycin in Neisseria gonorrhoeae in epidemiological studies. However, whether and how these alleles cause resistance is unclear. Here, we use population genomics, transformations, and transcriptional analyses to dissect the relationship between variant mtr alleles and azithromycin resistance. We find that the locus encompassing the mtrR transcriptional repressor and the mtrCDE pump is a hot spot of interspecific recombination introducing alleles from Neisseria meningitidis and Neisseria lactamica into N. gonorrhoeae, with multiple rare haplotypes in linkage disequilibrium at mtrD

SUBMITTER: Wadsworth CB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6083905 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature