Clinical isolate of a porinless Salmonella typhi resistant to high levels of chloramphenicol

We studied a clinical isolate of Salmonella typhi (strain 1895) characterized by resistance to 200 μg of chloramphenicol per ml despite the absence of chloramphenicol-inactivating activity. The outer membrane protein profile analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis indicated a deficiency of one of the major protein species which may serve as a porin for entry of chloramphenicol. When the strain was transformed with a plasmid encoding chloramphenicol acetyltransferase, chloramphenicol added to the culture was not inactivated, suggesting a drastic reduction of permeability towards the drug. Moreover, transformants bearing a plasmid coding for the Escherichia coli OmpF porin became considerably more susceptible to chloramphenicol (40 μg/ml). On the other hand, transformants carrying a plasmid encoding the Salmonella typhi ompC gene remained as resistant to the drug as the parental strain, even though they overexpressed OmpC. These findings indicate that the lack of OmpF plays a major role in the resistance to chloramphenicol in strain 1895.