Characterization of non-virulence plasmids with homology to the virulence plasmid of Salmonella dublin.

Six wild-type (wt) strains of Salmonella typhimurium, one wt strain of S. heidelberg and 12 wt strains of Escherichia coli were isolated based on both hybridization to a 6-kb HindIII fragment of the non-virulence coding part of the S. dublin serovar-specific virulence plasmid and the absence of hybridization to the virulence genes (spv genes) of the same plasmid. Such hybridization was shown to be caused by resident plasmids in all strains and to involve the same region of 30 to 37 kb of consecutive HindIII fragments on the S. dublin virulence plasmid, suggesting a common origin of this plasmid DNA. Nine of the plasmids were selected for detailed characterization and were shown not to be of the same plasmid species. They varied in size between 44 and 88 kb, they showed incompatibility with the plasmid K-MP10, or belonged to incompatibility group X, and with the exception of five plasmids from E. coli, they showed different HindIII restriction profile patterns.