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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2000, p. 5083-5086, Vol. 66, No. 11
0099-2240/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Low Sensitivity of Listeria monocytogenes to Quaternary Ammonium Compounds

L. Mereghetti,1,* R. Quentin,2 N. Marquet-Van Der Mee,1 and A. Audurier1

Laboratoire de Microbiologie, Faculté de Médecine de Tours,1 and Département de Microbiologie Médicale et Moléculaire, Unité de Bactériologie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Bretonneau,2 37032 Tours Cedex, France

Received 24 April 2000/Accepted 15 August 2000

Ninety-seven epidemiologically unrelated strains of Listeria monocytogenes were investigated for their sensitivities to quaternary ammonium compounds (benzalkonium chloride and cetrimide). The MICs for seven serogroup 1/2 strains were high. Three came from the environment and four came from food; none were isolated from human or animal samples. All 97 strains carried the mdrL gene, which encodes a multidrug efflux pump, and the orfA gene, a putative transcriptional repressor of mdrL. The absence of plasmids in four of the seven resistant strains and the conservation of resistance after plasmid curing suggested that the resistance genes are not plasmid borne. Moreover, PCR amplification and Southern blot hybridization experiments failed to find genes phylogenetically related to the qacA and smr genes, encoding multidrug efflux systems previously described for the genus Staphylococcus. The high association between nontypeability by phages and the loss of sensitivity to quaternary ammonium compounds are suggestive of an intrinsic resistance due to modifications in the cell wall.


* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Laboratoire de Microbiologie, Faculté de Médecine de Tours, 2 bis Bd Tonnellé, 37032 Tours Cedex, France. Phone: 33 2 47478113. Fax: 33 2 47478530. E-mail: laurent.mereghetti{at}med.univ-tours.fr.


Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2000, p. 5083-5086, Vol. 66, No. 11
0099-2240/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.



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