The Bacteroides fragilis NCTC 9343 genome is the fifth member of the Bacteroidetes/ Chlorobi group to be sequenced and the second Bacteroides fragilis strain. The Bacteroides fragilis NCTC 9343 genome shows considerable variation even within the same strain and ‘invertable promoters’ appear to regulate much of this variance in many surface-exposed and secreted proteins (Cerdeño-Tárraga et al., ...

Recent basic and clinical research efforts have shed more light on the taxonomy, microbiology, epidemiology, antimicrobial susceptibility and treatment of Bacteroides, Prevotella, and Porphyromonas species. Of all anaerobic bacteria, Bacteroides is the most frequently isolated pathogen from clinical specimens, including blood. Bacteroides, Prevotella and/or Porphyromonas species have been isola...

A putative transcriptional regulator of the AraC/XylS family was identified in a genomic genebank of Bacteroides fragilis Bf-1, which partially relieved the sensitivity of Escherichia coli DNA repair mutants to the DNA-damaging agents, metronidazole and mitomycin C. A homologue of this gene with the same phenotype was identified as BF638R3281 in B. fragilis 638R. Transcription of BF638R3281 was...

A unique shuttle plasmid, pDP1, has been constructed to mediate gene transfer between Escherichia coli and the Gram-negative anaerobe Bacteroides fragilis. pDP1 contains the pBR322 replicon and the Bacteroides clindamycin resistance plasmid pCP1 linked to the transfer origin of the broad host range plasmid RK2. pDP1 can be transferred from E. coli to B. fragilis by the RK2 conjugation system ev...

The activity of cefotetan against 430 strains of anaerobic bacteria was compared with that of cefoxitin, ceftizoxime, clindamycin, metronidazole, and chloramphenicol. Percent susceptible values for the Bacteroides fragilis group were 60, 80, 29, 86, 100, and 100%, respectively. Percent susceptible values for the B. fragilis species were 91, 92, 46, 98, 100, and 100%, respectively. Non-B. fragil...

The in vitro susceptibility of 155 strains of anaerobic bacteria to five cephalosporin antibiotics was tested. Cefoxitin was the most active against 33 isolates of Bacteroides fragilis; 82% of the strains were sensitive at 16 mug/ml. At 64 mug/ml cefazolin and cephaloridine were also generally effective. Cephalothin and cephalexin were relatively inactive versus B. fragilis. Cefoxitin, cephalor...

We studied the effect of pH (7.1, 6.3, and 5.8) on the in vitro susceptibilities of 59 isolates of Bacteroides fragilis and 60 isolates of other B. fragilis group species to trovafloxacin, ciprofloxacin, clindamycin, ampicillin-sulbactam, piperacillin-tazobactam, imipenem, and meropenem. For each agent tested the geometric mean MIC was highest at pH 5.8, intermediate at pH 6.3, and lowest at pH...

Far-UV irradiation of Bacteroides fragilis cells under anaerobic conditions resulted in the induction of a new 95,000-molecular-weight protein and the increased synthesis of two proteins with molecular weights of 90,000 and 70,000. The latter two proteins were synthesized in small amounts in unirradiated cells. The induction of a 37,000- to 40,000-molecular-weight protein was not observed in ir...

1. Thompson JS, Malamy MH. Sequencing the gene for an imipenem-cefoxitin hydrolyzing enzyme (CfiA) from Bacteroides fragilis TAL 2480 reveals strong similarity between CfiA and Bacillus cereus b-lactamase II. J Bacteriol 1990; 172: 2584–93. 2. Edwards R, Read PN. Expression of the carbapenemase gene (cfiA) in Bacteroides fragilis. J Antimicrob Chemother 2000; 46: 1009–12. 3. Andrews JM. Determi...

A comparison of antimicrobial susceptibility data of species of the Bacteroides fragilis group for 1989-1990 and 1998-1999 studies showed statistically significant increases or decreases in in vitro activity. Overall significant increases in resistance were noted for ampicillin-sulbactam and clindamycin, while significant decreases in resistance were noted for ertapenem and cefoxitin. Susceptib...