Identification of Tn<i>553</i>, a novel Tn<i>554</i>-related transposon that carries a complete <i>blaZ</i>-<i>blaR1</i>-<i>blaI</i> β-lactamase operon in <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i>
Henrike Krüger, Xing Ji, Yaxin Wang, Andrea T. Feßler, Yang Wang, Congming Wu, Štefan Schwarz
Abstract
During recent years, several Tn554-related transposons have been identified in Gram-positive bacteria.1,2 These transposons share a rather conserved transposition module comprising the genes tnpA, tnpB and tnpC, whereas their antimicrobial resistance gene content varies considerably, such as erm(A) and spc in Tn554, erm(A), spc and vga(E) in Tn6133, erm(A), spc, fexA and optrA in Tn6674, fexA and optrA in Tn6823, fexA in Tn558, lnu(G) in Tn6260, vga(A) in Tn5406 and dfrK in Tn559. Another transposon of the Tn554 family, Tn6188, harbours the biocide resistance gene qacH (Figure 1a). All these transposons move by a unique mechanism as identified in studies on serial transposition of Tn554. With each new transposition event, the 6 bp sequence representing the target site is located at the left...