title: Genetic context and structural diversity of class 1 integrons from human commensal bacteria in a hospital intensive care unit.
abstract: Most surveys for class 1 integrons are at least partly predicated on PCR screening that targets integron conserved regions. However, class 1 integrons are structurally diverse, so dependence on conserved regions may lead to missing clinically relevant examples of class 1 integrons. Here, we surveyed a commensal population of bacteria from patients in an intensive care unit to identify class 1 integrons irrespective of their structure or genetic context. We identified several examples of class 1 integrons linked to complete Tn402-like or Tn402 hybrid transposition modules and diverse insertion points with respect to the inverted repeat IRi boundary. The diversity and abundance of class 1 integrons identified are such that many novel elements seen here would not have been identified by commonly used methods, and they revealed an additional level of complexity.
authors.affiliation: The iThree Institute, University of Technology, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia.
authors.forename: Thu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Betteridge
authors.forename: Sally R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Partridge
authors.forename: Jonathan R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Iredell
authors.forename: H W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Stokes
mesh_terms: D004251:DNA Transposable Elements / Q000235:genetics*; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D004755:Enterobacteriaceae / Q000235:genetics; D006090:Gram-Negative Bacteria / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D032023:Integrons / Q000235:genetics*; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D055029:Inverted Repeat Sequences / Q000235:genetics*; D007711:Klebsiella pneumoniae / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004269:DNA, Bacterial