Characterization of incompatibility group HI1 plasmids from Salmonella typhi by restriction endonuclease digestion and hybridization of DNA probes for Tn3, Tn9, and Tn10.

Chloramphenicol resistance in Salmonella typhi is medicated by plasmids of the incompatibility group H, subgroup 1 (IncHI1). Eight IncHI1 plasmids from S. typhi strains originating in Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand, and India were examined by restriction enzyme digestion. The restriction enzymes, Apal, Xbal, and PstI were found to be most useful for comparison of plasmid DNAs. Four plasmids from S. typhi isolated in Mexico, Vietnam, and Thailand between 1972 and 1974 had identical restriction patterns with all three enzymes. The other IncHI1 plasmids showed only minor differences. However, some significant differences were noted between these IncHI1 plasmids and the prototype IncHI1 plasmid R27, which was isolated from S. typhimurium in 1961 and for which a restriction map has been constructed. Southern transfer hybridization with a nick-translated HI1 plasmid as a probe confirmed that there is a great deal of sequence homology among the IncHI1 plasmids. DNA probes were used to locate DNA sequences for ampicillin resistance (Tn3), chloramphenicol resistance (Tn9), tetracycline resistance (Tn10), and the one-way incompatibility between IncHI1 plasmids and the F factor, a characteristic property of IncHI1 plasmids. The results demonstrate that IncHI1 plasmids isolated from S. typhi from widely different geographic sources are very similar. Comparisons between the S. typhi plasmids and R27 indicated that conserved regions of DNA were those involved in conjugative transfer.