A plasmid in Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid has been detected in three related laboratory strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Strains D39S, R36, and R36NC each contain a minimum of two copies per cell of a 2.0-megadalton plasmid (pDP1). A plasmid twice as large as this smaller one is also present in much lower quantity in these strains, but neither plasmid is present in four strains related to these or in a drug-resistant clinical isolate from Paris. The plasmid yield was not amplified in the presence of chloramphenicol. No phenotype has been correlated with the presence of pDP1, which has existed in strains carried for many years in laboratory collections.