Characterization of Gram-positive tellurite resistance encoded by the Streptococcus pneumonia tehB gene

Streptocaccus pneumoniae is a Gram-positive bacterium which is naturally re sistant to tellurite. In this study, we cloned and sequenced a homologue of the Escherichia coli tellurite resistance gene tehB from S. pneumoniae. It encoded a protein of 284 amino acids which is 86 residues longer than E. c oli TehB, but similar in size to Haemophilus influenzae TehB and Eikenella corrodens hemagglutinin (Hag1) as well as homologues from Actinobacillus ac tinomycetemcomitans, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Neisseria meningitidis. The S. pneumoniae TehB displayed 46-58% identity (52-68% similarity) to these p roteins. The results in this study showed that the S. pneumoniae tehB alone not only conferred on E. coli high level resistance to tellurite, but also caused filamentous morphology in E. call. (C) 1999 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights re served.