Study on the correlation between gene ponA/penA and the penicillin-resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae / 中华流行病学杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the relationship between penA/ponA and penicillin resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Agar dilution method was used to determine the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of the strains. Polymerase chain reaction-single stand conformation polymerphism (PCR-SSCP) and PCR- restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) were used to detect the mutations in ponA and penA genes, which encoding the penicillin binding protein-1 and -2 (PBP1 and PBP2), respectively.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>All the 80 N. gonorrhoeae isolates had a D345 insertion detected in penA while 93.7% of N. gonorrhoeae isolates having a point mutation Leu421 --> Pro in ponA. Most of the penicillinase producing N. gonorrhoeae (PPNG) strains possessed the mutations in ponA and penA.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Our data suggested that the plasmid and chromosome mediated penicillin-resistance conjugately increased the level of resistance.</p>