Reduced <i>In Vitro</i> Susceptibility of Streptococcus pyogenes to β-Lactam Antibiotics Associated with Mutations in the <i>pbp2x</i> Gene Is Geographically Widespread
James M. Musser, Stephen B. Beres, Luchang Zhu, Randall J. Olsen, Jaana Vuopio, Hanne-Leena Hyyryläinen, Kirsi Gröndahl‐Yli‐Hannuksela, Karl G. Kristinsson, Jessica Darenberg, Birgitta Henriques‐Normark, Steen Hoffmann, Dominique A. Caugant, Andrew Smith, Diane Lindsay, David M. Boragine, Timothy Palzkill
Abstract
Recently, two related Streptococcus pyogenes strains with reduced susceptibility to ampicillin, amoxicillin, and cefotaxime, antibiotics commonly used to treat S. pyogenes infections, were reported. The two strains had the same nonsynonymous (amino acid-substituting) mutation in the pbp2x gene, encoding penicillin-binding protein 2X (PBP2X). This concerning report led us to investigate our library of 7,025 genome sequences of type emm1 , emm28 , and emm89 S. pyogenes clinical strains recovered from intercontinental sources for mutations in pbp2x .