Five hundred and seventy clinical strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were isolated from August 1993 to August 1994 in Korea and screened for their resistance to ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, and ofloxacin. Among these, two P. aeruginosa strains (PA150 and PA300) were selected based on their strong resistance (MICs > 50 micrograms/ml) to all three quinolones. The susceptible strain as well as two resistant strains had proton gradient-dependent efflux system. Efflux system in PA300 showed different specificities to ofloxacin and ciprofloxacin while PA 150 had less permeability for ofloxacin. Ofloxacin had a less inhibitory action on DNA synthesis in permeabilized cells of PA150 and PA300 than 1771M. When quinolone resistance determining region (QRDR) in gyrA was sequenced, PA300 had one missense mutation, Asn 116Tyr, which was newly reported in this work. The results showed that PA150 became ofloxacin resistant by reduced ofloxacin accumulation due to the existence of efflux system and low permeability, while resistance of PA300 was due to the efflux system and a mutation in QRDR of gyrA-the target site of quinolone.