Acquisition of Chloramphenicol Resistance by the Linearization and Integration of the Entire Staphylococcal Plasmid pC194 into the Chromosome of Streptococcus pneumoniae

Chloramphenicol resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniae was associated with cat, which has 100% identity with cat(pC194) from Staphylococcus aureus. Inverse PCR with primers specific for pC194 confirmed that in some isolates the entire staphylococcal plasmid was present in the S. pneumoniae chromosome, with linearization having occurred between cat(pC194) and the origin of replication.