New tetracycline resistance determinants coding for ribosomal protection in streptococci and nucleotide sequence of tet(T) isolated from Streptococcus pyogenes A498.

An approach based on PCR has been developed to identify new members of the tet gene family in streptococci resistant to tetracycline and minocycline. Degenerate primers, corresponding to portions of the conserved domains of the proteins Tet(M), Tet(O), TeTB(P), Tet(Q), and Tet(S), all specifying the tetracycline-minocycline resistance phenotype, were used to selectively amplify DNA fragments within the coding sequences. Nine streptococcal strains which do not carry the genes tet(M), tet(O), tetB(P), tet(Q), or tet(S) were investigated. Four of them gave no detectable PCR products. The five remaining strains each yielded a PCR product of 1.1 kbp. DNA hybridization experiments showed that these putative Tet determinants fell into four new hybridization classes, of which one, Tet T, was further analyzed. The gene tet(T) was isolated from Streptococcus pyogenes A498, and the nucleotide sequence that was necessary and sufficient for the expression of tetracycline resistance in Escherichia coli was determined. The deduced Tet(T) protein consists of 651 amino acids. The protein most closely related to Tet(T) was Tet(Q), which has 49% identical amino acid residues. A phylogenetic analysis revealed that Tet T represents a novel branching order among the Tet determinants so far described.