Potential for in vivo acquisition of R plasmids by one strain of Vibrio cholerae biotype El tor.

The feces of five patients admitted to a hospital during an outbreak of cholera in Melbourne, Australia, in November 1972, were examined for the presence of tetracycline-resistant coliforms and tetracycline-resistant strains of Vibrio cholerae. Despite the abundance of tetracycline-resistant coliforms able to transfer this resistance to other strains of Escherichia coli, no tetracycline-resistant strains of V. cholerae were detected. In vitro transfer experiments using the V. cholerae strain responsible for the outbreak as recipient revealed that it was a particularly poor host for most R plasmids.