The Streptococcus pneumoniae clone Hungary19A-6 expresses unusually high levels of β-lactam resistance, which is in part due to mutations in the MurM gene, encoding a transferase involved in the synthesis of branched peptidoglycan. Moreover, it contains the allele ciaH232, encoding the histidine kinase CiaH (M. Müller, P. Marx, R. Hakenbeck, and R. Brückner, Microbiology 157:3104-3112, 2011, ht...

After the introduction and extensive dissemination of the multidrug-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae clone Spain(6B)-2 between 1989 and the early to mid-1990s, the prevalence of pneumococcal isolates expressing intermediate resistance to penicillin, mainly of capsular types 6, 19, and 23, also began to increase in Iceland. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether these isolates or...

A 73-year-old man with no significant past medical history or any history of health care visits was hospitalized for pneumonia. Sputum culture revealed multidrug-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae, even to carbapenems. The patient was later treated successfully with levofloxacin. Throat cultures from his two grandchildren revealed S. pneumoniae with the same susceptibility pattern. Analysis for...

Sixty-seven clinical isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae (40 of serotype 23F, 19 of serotype 19F, and 8 of serotype 6B) with decreased susceptibilities to penicillin and erythromycin were characterized by antimicrobial susceptibility patterns; DNA restriction endonuclease cleavage profiles of the penicillin-binding protein genes pbp1a, pbp2b, and pbp2x; random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) ...

Transmission of Streptococcus pneumoniae between children and their parents was evaluated in 29 pairs from 25 families. The serotypes of 35 pneumococcal isolates from 18 (62.1%) of 29 child-parent pairs were identical. Of the 35 isolates, 23 showed intermediate resistance and 10 were fully resistant to penicillin G. PCR indicated that all 35 strains had at least one alteration in penicillin-bin...

The molecular epidemiology of penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae strains causing meningitis in children was studied in France. Typing procedures included analysis of total DNA polymorphism by random amplification of polymorphic DNA, restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the ribosomal RNA gene regions, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Penicillin-binding prot...