The product of the qacC gene of Staphylococcus epidermidis CH mediates resistance to β-lactam antibiotics in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria

We have characterized a natural isolate of Staphylococcus epidermidis resistant to heavy metals that carries a small 2391-bp plasmid, pSepCH, encoding the qacC gene. The S. epidermidis qacC gene confers resistance to a number of β-lactam antibiotics and to ethidium bromide in its natural host and in Escherichia coli K12 and Salmonella enterica sv. Typhimurium. This is the first communication of a small multidrug resistance (SMR) pump involved in resistance to β-lactam antibiotics. Experiments using tolC, ompW and ompD mutant strains of S. Typhimurium demonstrated that the β-lactam antibiotic resistance conferred by this pump does not depend on these outer membrane proteins.