A plasmid carrying the colistin resistance gene mcr-1 was isolated from a pig slurry sample in Estonia. The gene was present on a 33,311-bp plasmid of the IncX4 group. mcr-1 is the only antibiotic resistance gene on the plasmid, with the other genes mainly coding for proteins involved in conjugative DNA transfer (taxA, taxB, taxC, trbM, and the pilX operon). The plasmid pESTMCR was present in three phylogenetically very different Escherichia coli strains, suggesting that it has high potential for horizontal transfer.
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