OBJECTIVES The contribution of integrons and efflux pumps to multidrug resistance in Stenotrophomonas maltophilia was evaluated. MATERIALS AND METHODS Ninety-three S. maltophilia clinical isolates were studied. PCR and direct sequencing were used to detect the presence of integrons. Real-time PCR was performed to assess and quantify the expression of the Sme efflux pumps of S. maltophilia. ...

OBJECTIVES Serratia marcescens, an important cause of nosocomial infections, shows intrinsic resistance to a wide variety of antimicrobial agents (multidrug resistance). Multidrug efflux pumps are often involved in the multidrug resistance in many bacteria. A study was undertaken to characterize the multidrug efflux pumps in S. marcescens. METHODS The genes responsible for the multidrug resis...

Nosocomial infections with Enterococcus faecalis are an emerging health problem. However, drug efflux pumps contributing to intrinsic drug resistance are poorly studied in this Gram-positive pathogen. In this study, we functionally investigated seven heterodimeric ABC transporters of E. faecalis that are annotated as drug efflux pumps. Deletion of ef0789-ef0790 on the chromosome of E. faecalis ...

OBJECTIVES Multidrug efflux pumps are thought to be involved in mediating multidrug resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Here we aim to characterize hitherto uncharacterized multidrug efflux pumps from P. aeruginosa. MATERIALS AND METHODS We isolated a mutant, YM442, which showed elevated resistance to several antimicrobial agents from P. aeruginosa YM44 lacking four major multidrug efflux p...

BACKGROUND The study seeks to understand the role of efflux pumps in multidrug resistance displayed by the clinical isolates of Vibrio fluvialis, a pathogen known to cause cholera-like diarrhoea. METHODOLOGY Two putative MATE family efflux pumps (H- and D-type) were PCR amplified from clinical isolates of V. fluvialis obtained from Kolkata, India, in 2006 and sequenced. Bioinformatic analysis...

The AcrAB system of Escherichia coli is a multidrug efflux system composed of an RND-type transporter AcrB and a periplasmic accessory protein AcrA, and pumps out a wide variety of lipophilic and amphiphilic inhibitors directly into the medium, presumably through the TolC outer membrane channel. AcrA, a highly elongated protein, is thought to bring the outer and inner membranes closer. It forms...

The focus of this mini-review is to identify non-toxic compounds isolated from natural sources (plants) that exhibit specific activity against efflux pumps of specific multidrug-resistant (MDR) cancer cell lines, inhibit proliferation of the MDR cancer cell lines and inhibit the activity of overexpressed efflux pumps of the MDR cancer cell line.