R Factors in Strains of Salmonella typhi and Shigella dysenteriae 1 Isolated During Epidemics in Mexico: Classification by Compatibility

Abstract

All 17 Salmonella typhi strains tested from the epidemic in Mexico carried R factors of compatibility group H, conferring resistance to chloramphenicol, streptomycin, tetracycline, and sulfonamides. Some S. typhi strains carried, in addition, non-conjugative, ampicillin resistance plasmids and R factors of the I or A–C complex. All 20 Shigella dysenteriae 1 strains tested of epidemic origin carried O-group R factors. Ampicillin resistance in S. dysenteriae 1 was not proved to be plasmid borne. R factors of group H were not identified in any of the tested Mexican isolates other than S. typhi , but R factors of group O were identified in Escherichia coli, Shigella flexneri , and one strain of S. typhi , as well as in the epidemic S. dysenteriae . An R factor was identified which seemed to have two compatibility specificities, groups Iω and O.