Exfoliative toxin plasmids of bacteriophage group 2 Staphylococcus aureus: sequence homology.

The plasmid contents of seven exfoliative toxin-producing strains of phage group 2 Staphylococcus aureus were analyzed by agarose gel electrophoresis and deoxyribonucleic acid-deoxyribonucleic acid hybridization. All strains were found to contain a large plasmid with a molecular weight of 27 X 10(6) except for strain RW1005. A comparison of the restriction endonuclease cleavage products by agarose gel electrophoresis showed that the number and size distribution of the fragments of all these Tox plasmids were similar, except for pRW002, which appeared to contain two deletions. Deoxyribonucleic acid-deoxyribonucleic acid hybridization studies confirmed that these plasmids were related to a plasmid which carried the genes for exfoliative toxin B and bacteriocin R1 biosynthesis and that they shared some sequence homology with the penicillinase plasmid pI258 isolated from a phage group 3 S. aureus.