Nucleotide sequence of the aacC2 gene, a gentamicin resistance determinant involved in a hospital epidemic of multiply resistant members of the family Enterobacteriaceae.

A gentamicin resistance determinant of a conjugative plasmid from Enterobacter cloacae was cloned on a 3.2-kilobase fragment in the PstI site of pBR322. Substrate profiles for eight aminoglycosides at three concentrations showed that the resistance was due to aminoglycoside-(3)-N-acetyltransferase isoenzyme II. Insertion mapping by the gamma-delta transposon revealed that the size of the gene was approximately 1 kilobase. Nucleotide sequencing of the aacC2 gene identified an open reading frame of 858 base pairs, preceded by a promoter and a ribosome-binding site. From these data the molecular mass of the protein was calculated to be 30.6 kilodaltons. A comparison of the nucleotide sequence of the aacC2 gene with those published for the aacC3 and aacC4 genes showed complete homology of the aacC2 gene and the presumed aacC3 gene. An internal restriction fragment of the gene used as a probe in colony hybridization demonstrated the presence of the aacC2 gene in 86% of 86 multiply resistant isolates of the family Enterobacteriaceae obtained during an 18-month hospital epidemic. This corroborates our earlier data on the enzyme identification by the susceptibility profiling method.