SGI1-K, a variant of the SGI1 genomic island carrying a mercury resistance region, in Salmonella enterica serovar Kentucky

A multiple-antibiotic-resistant Salmonella enterica serovar Kentucky strain was found to contain SGI1-K, a variant form of the Salmonella genomic island 1 (SGI1) with an In4-type class I integron that contains only one cassette array, aacCA5-aadA7, and an adjacent mercury resistance module. Part of the 3'-conserved segment (3'-CS) of the integron, together with the inverted short segment from the right-hand end of the integron transposition module normally found between the 3'-CS and IS6100 in ln4 family integrons, has been removed by an IS6100-mediated deletion. IRt, the right-hand inverted repeat found at the outer end of the integron, abuts a mercury resistance region instead of the usual SGI1 backbone segment. The mer module is a hybrid of those found in Tn501 and Tn21. This mer region and a further uncharacterized segment of at least 10 kb appear to have been incorporated between IRt and the SGI1 backbone. These findings demonstrate that the multidrug resistance region in SGI1 can incorporate new DNA segments in the same way as multiple antibiotic resistance regions in plasmids.