Reply to Planet et al

To the Editor—We are grateful to Planet et al for taking the time to analyze our data. In an earlier study by Planet et al, the authors described “a novel copper and mercury resistance (COMER) mobile element in South American isolates” [1, p 1879] and the use of copB, a coding sequence within the mobile element locus, as a phylogenetic marker. In our study, we were able to identify copB in several of our isolates [2], which, similar to findings by Planet et al, revealed that copB distinguishes 2 groups of isolates (arginine catabolic mobile element [ACME]–negative and ACME-positive isolates). Unfortunately, since the sequences of the COMER element were not publicly available at the time of the submission of our manuscript, we were not able to identify this genomic region in our strains by using blast searches and the entire pool of annotated genes in public databases. This issue was mentioned in the Discussion section of our article, where we remarked that “[t]he genomes of these strains are not yet publicly available; thus, we were not able to assess their relatedness with our isolates” [2, p 1377]. Because the COMER element was not identified in the genomes from our strains, even after careful inspection of our annotation files, we were unable to compare its sequence between strains. We thank Planet et al for evaluating the presence of the COMER element in our set of strains and agree that these epidemic strains needs close monitoring on a global scale.

Note

Potential conflicts of interest. All authors: No reported conflicts. All authors have submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Conflicts that the editors consider relevant to the content of the manuscript have been disclosed.

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