Atypical strains, presumed to be pneumococcus, with ciprofloxacin MICs of >4.0 g/ml and unique sequence variations within the quinolone resistance-determining regions (QRDRs) of the gyrase and topoisomerase genes in comparison with the Streptococcus pneumoniae R6 strain, were examined. These strains were reidentified using phenotypic methods, including detection of optochin susceptibility, bile solubility, and agglutination by serotype-specific antisera, and genotypic methods, including detection of pneumolysin and autolysin genes by PCR, 16S rRNA sequencing, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). The analysis based on concatenated sequences of the six MLST loci distinguished the "atypical" strains from pneumococci, and these strains clustered closely with S. mitis. However, all these strains and five of nine strains from the viridans streptococcal group possessed one to three gyrA, gyrB, parC, and parE genes whose QRDR sequences clustered with those of S. pneumoniae, providing evidence of horizontal transfer of the QRDRs of the gyrase and topoisomerase genes from pneumococci into viridans streptococci. These genes also conferred fluoroquinolone resistance to viridans streptococci. In addition, the fluoroquinolone resistance determinants of 32 well-characterized Streptococcus mitis and Streptococcus oralis strains from bacteremic patients were also compared. These strains have unique amino acid substitutions in GyrA and ParC that were distinguishable from those in fluoroquinolone-resistant pneumococci and the "atypical" isolates. Both recombinational events and de novo mutations play an important role in the development of fluoroquinolone resistance.It has been recognized that an overestimation of antimicrobial resistance may result from the misidentification of oral streptococci. Misleading macrolide and penicillin resistance rates in Streptococcus pneumoniae had resulted from the use of one or more phenotypic/genotypic characteristics in the identification of pneumococcus (28,38). In a study by Neeleman et al. (28), the identities of 141 macrolide-resistant presumptive pneumococcal isolates from 38 laboratories were reexamined. Only 65% (91/141) of the strains were confirmed as S. pneumoniae, while 23% (32/141) were Streptococcus mitis and the remaining streptococcal species. This led to significant overreporting of macrolide-resistant S. pneumoniae. Increasingly, "atypical" pneumococcal isolates that do not have the defining characteristics of S. pneumoniae, such as optochin susceptibility and deoxycholate (bile) solubility, have been identified, while other closely related oral streptococci, such as S. mitis and Streptococcus oralis, are found to harbor the pneumolysin (ply) and/or the autolysin (lytA) genes (13,14,39), causing confusion in the presumptive identification of S. pneumoniae in a diagnostic laboratory. Likewise, those strains which are discrepant in phenotype(s) and/or genotype(s) have also been identified from surveillance studies in Asian countries (22).The development of fluoroquinolone resi...