Survey of Resistance to Metals and Volatilization Activity of Hg-Resistant R Plasmids in Citrobacter Isolated from Clinical Lesions in Japan

Abstract

Clinical isolates of Citrobacter (277 strains) were studied for the resistance to four metals and four drugs. The distribution patterns of their susceptibility to Hg, Cd and As clearly revealed two peaks, but only a single peak of resistance to Pb. The frequencies of resistance to Hg, Cd, As, SM, TC., CP and KM were 31.8, 94.2, 57.8, 51.3, 44.8, 35.7 and 28.9%, respectively. And we selected 88 mercury resistant strains, and they were tested for their ability to transfer the resistance to the mercury and drug sensitive recipients of E. coli K12-ML1410-Nx and E. coli JE17-Rif. Among 88 strains of Hg resistant Citrobacter, 80 R plasmids with Hg resistance could be demonstrated. It should be noted that transferable R plasmids with Hg resistance were demonstrated in 91% of the Hg-resistant isolates. Furthermore, we tested the volatilization of mercury by strains containing these mercury resistance plasmids, by using radioactive ²⁰³Hg²⁺. All of these isolates of Citrobacter have volatilization activity of Hg²⁺. Also, all of these volatilization activity is inducible.