Molecular relationship among fosfomycin-resistant plasmids and clinical impact of fosfomycin resistance.

We have been carrying out a surveillance programme on plasmid-mediated fosfomycin resistance in our community over the last decade and have isolated and characterized several varieties of conjugative plasmids from different enterobacteriae. In this work we show that seven varieties of plasmids are related with the Inc M group, and carry the same For determinant which encodes a modifying enzyme. The comparative study on their R-phenotype, restriction analysis and DNA-DNA hybridization showed different degrees of molecular relationship among them. The spread of For-plasmids as well as the fosfomycin resistance by other mechanisms seems to be low in spite of the great For-plasmid diversity found.