Ciprofloxacin-resistant mutants of Streptococcus pneumoniae 7785 were generated by stepwise selection at increasing drug concentrations. Sequence analysis of PCR products from the strains was used to examine the quinolone resistance-determining regions of the GyrA and GyrB proteins of DNA gyrase and the analogous regions of the ParC and ParE subunits of DNA topoisomerase IV. First-step mutants exhibiting low-level resistance had no detectable changes in their topoisomerase quinolone resistance-determining regions, suggesting altered permeation or another novel resistance mechanism. Nine of 10 second-step mutants exhibited an alteration in ParC at Ser-79 to Tyr or Phe or at Ala-84 to Thr. Third- and fourth-step mutants displaying high-level ciprofloxacin resistance were found to have, in addition to the ParC alteration, a change in GyrA at residues equivalent to Escherichia coli GyrA resistance hot spots Ser-83 and Asp-87 or in GyrB at Asp-435 to Asn, equivalent to E. coli Asp-426, part of a highly conserved EGDSA motif in GyrB. No ParE changes were observed. Complementary analysis of two S. pneumoniae clinical isolates displaying low-level resistance to ciprofloxacin revealed a ParC change at Ser-79 to Phe or Arg-95 to Cys but no changes in GyrA, GyrB, or ParE. A highly resistant isolate, in addition to a ParC mutation, had a GyrA alteration at the residue equivalent to E. coli Asp-87. Thus, in both laboratory strains and clinical isolates, ParC mutations preceded those in GyrA, suggesting that topoisomerase IV is a primary topoisomerase target and gyrase is a secondary target for ciprofloxacin in S. pneumoniae.

DNA topoisomerase IV mediates chromosome segregation and is a potential target for antibacterial agents including new antipneumococcal fluoroquinolones. We have used hybridization to a Staphylococcus aureus gyrB probe in concert with chromosome walking to isolate the Streptococcus pneumoniae parE-parC locus, lying downstream of a putative new insertion sequence and encoding 647-residue ParE and 823-residue ParC subunits of DNA topoisomerase IV. These proteins exhibited greatest homology respectively to the GrlB (ParE) and GrlA (ParC) subunits of S. aureus DNA topoisomerase IV. When combined, whole-cell extracts of Escherichia coli strains expressing S. pneumoniae ParC or ParE proteins reconstituted a salt-insensitive ATP-dependent decatenase activity characteristic of DNA topoisomerase IV. A second gyrB homolog isolated from S. pneumoniae encoded a 648-residue protein which we identified as GyrB through its close homology both to counterparts in S. aureus and Bacillus subtilis and to the product of the S. pneumoniae nov-1 gene that confers novobiocin resistance. gyrB was not closely linked to gyrA. To examine the role of DNA topoisomerase IV in fluoroquinolone action and resistance in S. pneumoniae, we isolated mutant strains stepwise selected for resistance to increasing concentrations of ciprofloxacin. We analysed four low-level resistant mutants and showed that Ser-79 of ParC, equivalent to resistance hotspots Ser-80 of GrlA and Ser-84 of GyrA in S. aureus, was in each case substituted with Tyr. These results suggest that DNA topoisomerase IV is an important target for fluoroquinolones in S. pneumoniae and establish this organism as a useful gram-positive system for resistance studies.