Probable phosphatidylethanolamine transferase Mcr-1 | |||||||
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Identifiers | |||||||
Organism | |||||||
Symbol | mcr1 | ||||||
UniProt | A0A0R6L508 | ||||||
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The mobilized colistin resistance (mcr) gene confers plasmid-mediated resistance to colistin, one of a number of last-resort antibiotics for treating Gram-negative infections. mcr-1, the original variant, is capable of horizontal transfer between different strains of a bacterial species. After discovery in November 2015 in E. coli (strain SHP45) from a pig in China it has been found in Escherichia coli, Salmonella enterica, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter aerogenes, and Enterobacter cloacae. As of 2017[update], it has been detected in more than 30 countries on 5 continents in less than a year.