[A novel Salmonella Typhimurium plasmid, pAnkS: an example for plasmid evolution in antibiotic resistance].

In this study, a plasmid, carrying ampicillin resistance (ampR) gene, isolated from a clinical isolate of Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium presenting ACSSuT (ampicilin, chloramphenicol, streptomycin, sulphonamide, tetracycline) resistance phenotype, was defined. The length of complete sequence of this plasmid was 8271 base pairs (bp), and it was named as pAnkS owing to its isolation place (plasmid-Ankara- Salmonella). The plasmid was analyzed for potential reading frames and structural features indicative of transposons and transposon relics. The Xmnl enzyme restriction fragments of pAnkS were cloned into E. coli plasmid vectors (pBSK), sequenced and analyzed with the BLAST programs. Plasmid pAnkS has contained a previously defined enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) plasmid p4821 as a core region and also contained a complete Tn3-like transposon of 4950 bp consisting of the left terminal repeat, Tn3-related tnpR and tnpA genes for transposition functions, ampicillin resistance gene bla(TEM), and the right terminal repeats, pAnkS showed strong homology with another Salmonella plasmid, pNTP16, for sequences that belong to p4821 and partial Tn3 segments. It was found that pNTP16 also carries kanamycin resistance gene (kanR) in addition to ampR gene. Plasmid pAnkS is one of the few completely sequenced plasmids from Salmonella Typhimurium and is in the middle of the pathway of evolution of plasmid from p4821 to pNTP16. The identification of pAnkS might help better understanding of plasmid evolution.