1
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Wang Y, Dagan T. The evolution of antibiotic resistance islands occurs within the framework of plasmid lineages. Nat Commun 2024; 15:4555. [PMID: 38811529 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48352-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2023] [Accepted: 04/25/2024] [Indexed: 05/31/2024] Open
Abstract
Bacterial pathogens carrying multidrug resistance (MDR) plasmids are a major threat to human health. The acquisition of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in plasmids is often facilitated by mobile genetic elements that copy or translocate ARGs between DNA molecules. The agglomeration of mobile elements in plasmids generates resistance islands comprising multiple ARGs. However, whether the emergence of resistance islands is restricted to specific MDR plasmid lineages remains understudied. Here we show that the agglomeration of ARGs in resistance islands is biased towards specific large plasmid lineages. Analyzing 6784 plasmids in 2441 Escherichia, Salmonella, and Klebsiella isolates, we quantify that 84% of the ARGs in MDR plasmids are found in resistance islands. We furthermore observe rapid evolution of ARG combinations in resistance islands. Most regions identified as resistance islands are shared among closely related plasmids but rarely among distantly related plasmids. Our results suggest the presence of barriers for the dissemination of ARGs between plasmid lineages, which are related to plasmid genetic properties, host range and the plasmid evolutionary history. The agglomeration of ARGs in plasmids is attributed to the workings of mobile genetic elements that operate within the framework of existing plasmid lineages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yiqing Wang
- Institute of General Microbiology, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany
| | - Tal Dagan
- Institute of General Microbiology, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.
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2
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Hanke DM, Wang Y, Dagan T. Pseudogenes in plasmid genomes reveal past transitions in plasmid mobility. Nucleic Acids Res 2024:gkae430. [PMID: 38808675 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkae430] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/13/2023] [Revised: 04/23/2024] [Accepted: 05/08/2024] [Indexed: 05/30/2024] Open
Abstract
Evidence for gene non-functionalization due to mutational processes is found in genomes in the form of pseudogenes. Pseudogenes are known to be rare in prokaryote chromosomes, with the exception of lineages that underwent an extreme genome reduction (e.g. obligatory symbionts). Much less is known about the frequency of pseudogenes in prokaryotic plasmids; those are genetic elements that can transfer between cells and may encode beneficial traits for their host. Non-functionalization of plasmid-encoded genes may alter the plasmid characteristics, e.g. mobility, or their effect on the host. Analyzing 10 832 prokaryotic genomes, we find that plasmid genomes are characterized by threefold-higher pseudogene density compared to chromosomes. The majority of plasmid pseudogenes correspond to deteriorated transposable elements. A detailed analysis of enterobacterial plasmids furthermore reveals frequent gene non-functionalization events associated with the loss of plasmid self-transmissibility. Reconstructing the evolution of closely related plasmids reveals that non-functionalization of the conjugation machinery led to the emergence of non-mobilizable plasmid types. Examples are virulence plasmids in Escherichia and Salmonella. Our study highlights non-functionalization of core plasmid mobility functions as one route for the evolution of domesticated plasmids. Pseudogenes in plasmids supply insights into past transitions in plasmid mobility that are akin to transitions in bacterial lifestyle.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dustin M Hanke
- Institute of General Microbiology, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany
| | - Yiqing Wang
- Institute of General Microbiology, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany
| | - Tal Dagan
- Institute of General Microbiology, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany
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3
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Figueroa W, Cazares D, Cazares A. Phage-plasmids: missed links between mobile genetic elements. Trends Microbiol 2024:S0966-842X(24)00114-8. [PMID: 38755022 DOI: 10.1016/j.tim.2024.04.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2024] [Revised: 04/26/2024] [Accepted: 04/29/2024] [Indexed: 05/18/2024]
Abstract
Phages and plasmids are discrete mobile genetic elements (MGEs) with critical roles in gene dissemination across bacteria but limited scope for exchanging DNA between them. By investigating recent gene-sharing events, Pfeifer and Rocha describe how the hybrid elements phage-plasmids (P-Ps) promote gene flow between MGE types and evolve into new ones.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wendy Figueroa
- Centre for Bacterial Resistance Biology, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | | | - Adrian Cazares
- Parasites and Microbes Programme, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK.
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4
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Quiñonero-Coronel MDM, Devos DP, Garcillán-Barcia MP. Specificities and commonalities of the Planctomycetes plasmidome. Environ Microbiol 2024; 26:e16638. [PMID: 38733104 DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.16638] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2024] [Accepted: 04/30/2024] [Indexed: 05/13/2024]
Abstract
Plasmids, despite their critical role in antibiotic resistance and modern biotechnology, are understood in only a few bacterial groups in terms of their natural ecological dynamics. The bacterial phylum Planctomycetes, known for its unique molecular and cellular biology, has a largely unexplored plasmidome. This study offers a thorough exploration of the diversity of natural plasmids within Planctomycetes, which could serve as a foundation for developing various genetic research tools for this phylum. Planctomycetes plasmids encode a broad range of biological functions and appear to have coevolved significantly with their host chromosomes, sharing many homologues. Recent transfer events of insertion sequences between cohabiting chromosomes and plasmids were also observed. Interestingly, 64% of plasmid genes are distantly related to either chromosomally encoded genes or have homologues in plasmids from other bacterial groups. The planctomycetal plasmidome is composed of 36% exclusive proteins. Most planctomycetal plasmids encode a replication initiation protein from the Replication Protein A family near a putative iteron-containing replication origin, as well as active type I partition systems. The identification of one conjugative and three mobilizable plasmids suggests the occurrence of horizontal gene transfer via conjugation within this phylum. This comprehensive description enhances our understanding of the plasmidome of Planctomycetes and its potential implications in antibiotic resistance and biotechnology.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Damien Paul Devos
- Centro Andaluz de Biología del Desarrollo (CABD, CSIC-Universidad Pablo de Olavide), Sevilla, Spain
| | - M Pilar Garcillán-Barcia
- Instituto de Biomedicina y Biotecnología de Cantabria (IBBTEC, CSIC-Universidad de Cantabria), Cantabria, Spain
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5
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Yang QE, Ma X, Li M, Zhao M, Zeng L, He M, Deng H, Liao H, Rensing C, Friman VP, Zhou S, Walsh TR. Evolution of triclosan resistance modulates bacterial permissiveness to multidrug resistance plasmids and phages. Nat Commun 2024; 15:3654. [PMID: 38688912 PMCID: PMC11061290 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48006-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/08/2023] [Accepted: 04/17/2024] [Indexed: 05/02/2024] Open
Abstract
The horizontal transfer of plasmids has been recognized as one of the key drivers for the worldwide spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) across bacterial pathogens. However, knowledge remain limited about the contribution made by environmental stress on the evolution of bacterial AMR by modulating horizontal acquisition of AMR plasmids and other mobile genetic elements. Here we combined experimental evolution, whole genome sequencing, reverse genetic engineering, and transcriptomics to examine if the evolution of chromosomal AMR to triclosan (TCS) disinfectant has correlated effects on modulating bacterial pathogen (Klebsiella pneumoniae) permissiveness to AMR plasmids and phage susceptibility. Herein, we show that TCS exposure increases the evolvability of K. pneumoniae to evolve TCS-resistant mutants (TRMs) by acquiring mutations and altered expression of several genes previously associated with TCS and antibiotic resistance. Notably, nsrR deletion increases conjugation permissiveness of K. pneumoniae to four AMR plasmids, and enhances susceptibility to various Klebsiella-specific phages through the downregulation of several bacterial defense systems and changes in membrane potential with altered reactive oxygen species response. Our findings suggest that unrestricted use of TCS disinfectant imposes a dual impact on bacterial antibiotic resistance by augmenting both chromosomally and horizontally acquired AMR mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiu E Yang
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China
| | - Xiaodan Ma
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China
| | - Minchun Li
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China
| | - Mengshi Zhao
- Fujian Key Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health, College of Animal Sciences, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China
| | - Lingshuang Zeng
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China
| | - Minzhen He
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China
| | - Hui Deng
- Fujian Key Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health, College of Animal Sciences, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China
| | - Hanpeng Liao
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China
| | - Christopher Rensing
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China
| | - Ville-Petri Friman
- Department of Microbiology, University of Helsinki, 00014, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Shungui Zhou
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China.
| | - Timothy R Walsh
- Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research, Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3RE, UK.
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6
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Giannantoni L, Bardini R, Savino A, Di Carlo S. Biology System Description Language (BiSDL): a modeling language for the design of multicellular synthetic biological systems. BMC Bioinformatics 2024; 25:166. [PMID: 38664639 PMCID: PMC11046772 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-024-05782-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2024] [Accepted: 04/12/2024] [Indexed: 04/28/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The Biology System Description Language (BiSDL) is an accessible, easy-to-use computational language for multicellular synthetic biology. It allows synthetic biologists to represent spatiality and multi-level cellular dynamics inherent to multicellular designs, filling a gap in the state of the art. Developed for designing and simulating spatial, multicellular synthetic biological systems, BiSDL integrates high-level conceptual design with detailed low-level modeling, fostering collaboration in the Design-Build-Test-Learn cycle. BiSDL descriptions directly compile into Nets-Within-Nets (NWNs) models, offering a unique approach to spatial and hierarchical modeling in biological systems. RESULTS BiSDL's effectiveness is showcased through three case studies on complex multicellular systems: a bacterial consortium, a synthetic morphogen system and a conjugative plasmid transfer process. These studies highlight the BiSDL proficiency in representing spatial interactions and multi-level cellular dynamics. The language facilitates the compilation of conceptual designs into detailed, simulatable models, leveraging the NWNs formalism. This enables intuitive modeling of complex biological systems, making advanced computational tools more accessible to a broader range of researchers. CONCLUSIONS BiSDL represents a significant step forward in computational languages for synthetic biology, providing a sophisticated yet user-friendly tool for designing and simulating complex biological systems with an emphasis on spatiality and cellular dynamics. Its introduction has the potential to transform research and development in synthetic biology, allowing for deeper insights and novel applications in understanding and manipulating multicellular systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leonardo Giannantoni
- Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Polytechnic University of Turin, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 100129, Turin, TO, Italy
| | - Roberta Bardini
- Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Polytechnic University of Turin, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 100129, Turin, TO, Italy.
| | - Alessandro Savino
- Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Polytechnic University of Turin, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 100129, Turin, TO, Italy
| | - Stefano Di Carlo
- Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Polytechnic University of Turin, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 100129, Turin, TO, Italy
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7
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Omar KM, Kitundu GL, Jimoh AO, Namikelwa DN, Lisso FM, Babajide AA, Olufemi SE, Awe OI. Investigating antimicrobial resistance genes in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania cattle using metagenomics. PeerJ 2024; 12:e17181. [PMID: 38666081 PMCID: PMC11044882 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17181] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2022] [Accepted: 03/11/2024] [Indexed: 04/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing problem in African cattle production systems, posing a threat to human and animal health and the associated economic value chain. However, there is a poor understanding of the resistomes in small-holder cattle breeds in East African countries. This study aims to examine the distribution of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda cattle using a metagenomics approach. We used the SqueezeMeta-Abricate (assembly-based) pipeline to detect ARGs and benchmarked this approach using the Centifuge-AMRplusplus (read-based) pipeline to evaluate its efficiency. Our findings reveal a significant number of ARGs of critical medical and economic importance in all three countries, including resistance to drugs of last resort such as carbapenems, suggesting the presence of highly virulent and antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens (ESKAPE) circulating in East Africa. Shared ARGs such as aph(6)-id (aminoglycoside phosphotransferase), tet (tetracycline resistance gene), sul2 (sulfonamide resistance gene) and cfxA_gen (betalactamase gene) were detected. Assembly-based methods revealed fewer ARGs compared to read-based methods, indicating the sensitivity and specificity of read-based methods in resistome characterization. Our findings call for further surveillance to estimate the intensity of the antibiotic resistance problem and wider resistome classification. Effective management of livestock and antibiotic consumption is crucial in minimizing antimicrobial resistance and maximizing productivity, making these findings relevant to stakeholders, agriculturists, and veterinarians in East Africa and Africa at large.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kauthar M. Omar
- Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, School of Pure and Applied Sciences, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya
| | - George L. Kitundu
- Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, School of Pure and Applied Sciences, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya
| | - Adijat O. Jimoh
- Division of Immunology, Department of Pathology, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
- Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics Department, National Biotechnology Development Agency, Abuja, Nigeria
| | - Dorcus N. Namikelwa
- Department of Data Management, Modelling and Geo-Information Unit, International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - Felix M. Lisso
- Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, School of Pure and Applied Sciences, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya
| | - Abiola A. Babajide
- South African National Bioinformatics Institute, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
| | - Seun E. Olufemi
- Department of Biochemistry, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria
| | - Olaitan I. Awe
- African Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Cape Town, South Africa
- Department of Computer Science, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria
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8
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Shuai X, Zhou Z, Zhu L, Achi C, Lin Z, Liu Z, Yu X, Zhou J, Lin Y, Chen H. Ranking the risk of antibiotic resistance genes by metagenomic and multifactorial analysis in hospital wastewater systems. JOURNAL OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS 2024; 468:133790. [PMID: 38368689 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.133790] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2023] [Revised: 01/23/2024] [Accepted: 02/13/2024] [Indexed: 02/20/2024]
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance poses a serious threat to human health. Hospital wastewater system (HWS) is an important source of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). The risk of ARGs in HWS is still an under-researched area. In this study, we collected publicly metagenomic datasets of 71 hospital wastewater samples from 18 hospitals in 13 cities. A total of 9838 contigs were identified to carry 383 unique ARGs across all samples, of which 2946 contigs were plasmid-like sequences. Concurrently, the primary hosts of ARGs within HWS were found to be Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. To further evaluate the risk of each ARG subtype, we proposed a risk assessment framework based on the importance of corresponding antibiotics as defined by the WHO and three other indicators - ARG abundance (A), mobility (M), and host pathogenicity (P). Ninety ARGs were identified as R1 ARGs having high-risk scores, which meant having a high abundance, high mobility, and carried by pathogens in HWS. Furthermore, 25% to 49% of genomes from critically important pathogens accessed from NCBI carried R1 ARGs. A significantly higher number of R1 ARGs was carried by pathogens in the effluents of municipal wastewater treatment plants from NCBI, highlighting the role of R1 ARGS in accelerating health and environmental risks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xinyi Shuai
- Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Zhenchao Zhou
- Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Lin Zhu
- School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310012, China
| | - Chioma Achi
- Ineos Oxford Institute of Antimicrobial Research, Department of Biology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Zejun Lin
- Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Zhe Liu
- Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Xi Yu
- Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Jinyu Zhou
- Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Yanhan Lin
- Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Hong Chen
- Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China; International Cooperation Base of Environmental Pollution and Ecological Health, Science and Technology Agency of Zhejiang, Zhejiang University, China; Key Laboratory of Environment Remediation and Ecological Health, Ministry of Education, College of Environmental Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
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9
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Wu Y, Garushyants SK, van den Hurk A, Aparicio-Maldonado C, Kushwaha SK, King CM, Ou Y, Todeschini TC, Clokie MRJ, Millard AD, Gençay YE, Koonin EV, Nobrega FL. Bacterial defense systems exhibit synergistic anti-phage activity. Cell Host Microbe 2024; 32:557-572.e6. [PMID: 38402614 PMCID: PMC11009048 DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2024.01.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2023] [Revised: 01/23/2024] [Accepted: 01/30/2024] [Indexed: 02/27/2024]
Abstract
Bacterial defense against phage predation involves diverse defense systems acting individually and concurrently, yet their interactions remain poorly understood. We investigated >100 defense systems in 42,925 bacterial genomes and identified numerous instances of their non-random co-occurrence and negative association. For several pairs of defense systems significantly co-occurring in Escherichia coli strains, we demonstrate synergistic anti-phage activity. Notably, Zorya II synergizes with Druantia III and ietAS defense systems, while tmn exhibits synergy with co-occurring systems Gabija, Septu I, and PrrC. For Gabija, tmn co-opts the sensory switch ATPase domain, enhancing anti-phage activity. Some defense system pairs that are negatively associated in E. coli show synergy and significantly co-occur in other taxa, demonstrating that bacterial immune repertoires are largely shaped by selection for resistance against host-specific phages rather than negative epistasis. Collectively, these findings demonstrate compatibility and synergy between defense systems, allowing bacteria to adopt flexible strategies for phage defense.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi Wu
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
| | - Sofya K Garushyants
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Anne van den Hurk
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
| | | | - Simran Krishnakant Kushwaha
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK; Department of Biological Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, Rajasthan, India
| | - Claire M King
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
| | - Yaqing Ou
- Wellcome Centre for Cell-Matrix Research, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
| | - Thomas C Todeschini
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
| | - Martha R J Clokie
- Department of Genetics and Genome Biology, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
| | - Andrew D Millard
- Department of Genetics and Genome Biology, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
| | | | - Eugene V Koonin
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Franklin L Nobrega
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
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10
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DelaFuente J, Diaz-Colunga J, Sanchez A, San Millan A. Global epistasis in plasmid-mediated antimicrobial resistance. Mol Syst Biol 2024; 20:311-320. [PMID: 38409539 PMCID: PMC10987494 DOI: 10.1038/s44320-024-00012-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2023] [Revised: 01/03/2024] [Accepted: 01/04/2024] [Indexed: 02/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria is a major public health threat and conjugative plasmids play a key role in the dissemination of AMR genes among bacterial pathogens. Interestingly, the association between AMR plasmids and pathogens is not random and certain associations spread successfully at a global scale. The burst of genome sequencing has increased the resolution of epidemiological programs, broadening our understanding of plasmid distribution in bacterial populations. Despite the immense value of these studies, our ability to predict future plasmid-bacteria associations remains limited. Numerous empirical studies have recently reported systematic patterns in genetic interactions that enable predictability, in a phenomenon known as global epistasis. In this perspective, we argue that global epistasis patterns hold the potential to predict interactions between plasmids and bacterial genomes, thereby facilitating the prediction of future successful associations. To assess the validity of this idea, we use previously published data to identify global epistasis patterns in clinically relevant plasmid-bacteria associations. Furthermore, using simple mechanistic models of antibiotic resistance, we illustrate how global epistasis patterns may allow us to generate new hypotheses on the mechanisms associated with successful plasmid-bacteria associations. Collectively, we aim at illustrating the relevance of exploring global epistasis in the context of plasmid biology.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Juan Diaz-Colunga
- Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB-CSIC), Madrid, Spain
- Institute of Functional Biology & Genomics, IBFG - CSIC, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
| | - Alvaro Sanchez
- Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB-CSIC), Madrid, Spain.
- Institute of Functional Biology & Genomics, IBFG - CSIC, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain.
| | - Alvaro San Millan
- Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB-CSIC), Madrid, Spain.
- Centro de Investigación Biológica en Red de Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
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11
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Beavogui A, Lacroix A, Wiart N, Poulain J, Delmont TO, Paoli L, Wincker P, Oliveira PH. The defensome of complex bacterial communities. Nat Commun 2024; 15:2146. [PMID: 38459056 PMCID: PMC10924106 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46489-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2023] [Accepted: 02/28/2024] [Indexed: 03/10/2024] Open
Abstract
Bacteria have developed various defense mechanisms to avoid infection and killing in response to the fast evolution and turnover of viruses and other genetic parasites. Such pan-immune system (defensome) encompasses a growing number of defense lines that include well-studied innate and adaptive systems such as restriction-modification, CRISPR-Cas and abortive infection, but also newly found ones whose mechanisms are still poorly understood. While the abundance and distribution of defense systems is well-known in complete and culturable genomes, there is a void in our understanding of their diversity and richness in complex microbial communities. Here we performed a large-scale in-depth analysis of the defensomes of 7759 high-quality bacterial population genomes reconstructed from soil, marine, and human gut environments. We observed a wide variation in the frequency and nature of the defensome among large phyla, which correlated with lifestyle, genome size, habitat, and geographic background. The defensome's genetic mobility, its clustering in defense islands, and genetic variability was found to be system-specific and shaped by the bacterial environment. Hence, our results provide a detailed picture of the multiple immune barriers present in environmentally distinct bacterial communities and set the stage for subsequent identification of novel and ingenious strategies of diversification among uncultivated microbes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Angelina Beavogui
- Génomique Métabolique, Genoscope, Institut François Jacob, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA), CNRS, Université Evry, Université Paris-Saclay, 2 Rue Gaston Crémieux, 91057, Evry, France
| | - Auriane Lacroix
- Génomique Métabolique, Genoscope, Institut François Jacob, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA), CNRS, Université Evry, Université Paris-Saclay, 2 Rue Gaston Crémieux, 91057, Evry, France
| | - Nicolas Wiart
- Genoscope, Institut François Jacob, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, 2 Rue Gaston Crémieux, 91057, Evry, France
| | - Julie Poulain
- Génomique Métabolique, Genoscope, Institut François Jacob, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA), CNRS, Université Evry, Université Paris-Saclay, 2 Rue Gaston Crémieux, 91057, Evry, France
- Research Federation for the Study of Global Ocean Systems Ecology and Evolution, FR2022 / Tara GOsee, Paris, France
| | - Tom O Delmont
- Génomique Métabolique, Genoscope, Institut François Jacob, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA), CNRS, Université Evry, Université Paris-Saclay, 2 Rue Gaston Crémieux, 91057, Evry, France
- Research Federation for the Study of Global Ocean Systems Ecology and Evolution, FR2022 / Tara GOsee, Paris, France
| | - Lucas Paoli
- Department of Biology, Institute of Microbiology and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, ETH Zürich, Zürich, 8093, Switzerland
- Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, INSERM U1284, Molecular Diversity of Microbes lab, Paris, France
| | - Patrick Wincker
- Génomique Métabolique, Genoscope, Institut François Jacob, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA), CNRS, Université Evry, Université Paris-Saclay, 2 Rue Gaston Crémieux, 91057, Evry, France
- Research Federation for the Study of Global Ocean Systems Ecology and Evolution, FR2022 / Tara GOsee, Paris, France
| | - Pedro H Oliveira
- Génomique Métabolique, Genoscope, Institut François Jacob, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA), CNRS, Université Evry, Université Paris-Saclay, 2 Rue Gaston Crémieux, 91057, Evry, France.
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12
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Yu MK, Fogarty EC, Eren AM. Diverse plasmid systems and their ecology across human gut metagenomes revealed by PlasX and MobMess. Nat Microbiol 2024; 9:830-847. [PMID: 38443576 PMCID: PMC10914615 DOI: 10.1038/s41564-024-01610-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2022] [Accepted: 01/17/2024] [Indexed: 03/07/2024]
Abstract
Plasmids alter microbial evolution and lifestyles by mobilizing genes that often confer fitness in changing environments across clades. Yet our ecological and evolutionary understanding of naturally occurring plasmids is far from complete. Here we developed a machine-learning model, PlasX, which identified 68,350 non-redundant plasmids across human gut metagenomes and organized them into 1,169 evolutionarily cohesive 'plasmid systems' using our sequence containment-aware network-partitioning algorithm, MobMess. Individual plasmids were often country specific, yet most plasmid systems spanned across geographically distinct human populations. Cargo genes in plasmid systems included well-known determinants of fitness, such as antibiotic resistance, but also many others including enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of essential nutrients and modification of transfer RNAs, revealing a wide repertoire of likely fitness determinants in complex environments. Our study introduces computational tools to recognize and organize plasmids, and uncovers the ecological and evolutionary patterns of diverse plasmids in naturally occurring habitats through plasmid systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael K Yu
- Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
| | - Emily C Fogarty
- Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
- Committee On Microbiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - A Murat Eren
- Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, USA.
- Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany.
- Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany.
- Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity, Oldenburg, Germany.
- Marine 'Omics Group, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany.
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13
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Lipworth S, Matlock W, Shaw L, Vihta KD, Rodger G, Chau K, Barker L, George S, Kavanagh J, Davies T, Vaughan A, Andersson M, Jeffery K, Oakley S, Morgan M, Hopkins S, Peto T, Crook D, Walker AS, Stoesser N. The plasmidome associated with Gram-negative bloodstream infections: A large-scale observational study using complete plasmid assemblies. Nat Commun 2024; 15:1612. [PMID: 38383544 PMCID: PMC10881496 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45761-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/12/2022] [Accepted: 02/01/2024] [Indexed: 02/23/2024] Open
Abstract
Plasmids carry genes conferring antimicrobial resistance and other clinically important traits, and contribute to the rapid dissemination of such genes. Previous studies using complete plasmid assemblies, which are essential for reliable inference, have been small and/or limited to plasmids carrying antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs). In this study, we sequenced 1,880 complete plasmids from 738 isolates from bloodstream infections in Oxfordshire, UK. The bacteria had been originally isolated in 2009 (194 isolates) and 2018 (368 isolates), plus a stratified selection from intervening years (176 isolates). We demonstrate that plasmids are largely, but not entirely, constrained to a single host species, although there is substantial overlap between species of plasmid gene-repertoire. Most ARGs are carried by a relatively small number of plasmid groups with biological features that are predictable. Plasmids carrying ARGs (including those encoding carbapenemases) share a putative 'backbone' of core genes with those carrying no such genes. These findings suggest that future surveillance should, in addition to tracking plasmids currently associated with clinically important genes, focus on identifying and monitoring the dissemination of high-risk plasmid groups with the potential to rapidly acquire and disseminate these genes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel Lipworth
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
- Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK.
| | - William Matlock
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Liam Shaw
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, UK
| | | | - Gillian Rodger
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Kevin Chau
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Leanne Barker
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Sophie George
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - James Kavanagh
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Timothy Davies
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, UK
| | - Alison Vaughan
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | | | - Katie Jeffery
- Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK
| | - Sarah Oakley
- Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK
| | - Marcus Morgan
- Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK
| | - Susan Hopkins
- National Infection Service, United Kingdom Health Security Agency, Colindale, London, UK
| | - Timothy Peto
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK
- NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK
| | - Derrick Crook
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK
- NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK
| | - A Sarah Walker
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK
| | - Nicole Stoesser
- Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK
- NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK
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14
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Gómez-Baltazar A, Godínez-Oviedo A, Segura-García LE, Hernández-Pérez CF, Hernández-Iturriaga M, Cabrera-Díaz E. Genomic diversity of Salmonella enterica isolated from raw chicken at retail establishments in Mexico. Int J Food Microbiol 2024; 411:110526. [PMID: 38154253 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2023.110526] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2023] [Revised: 11/25/2023] [Accepted: 12/11/2023] [Indexed: 12/30/2023]
Abstract
The genomic diversity of circulating non-typhoidal Salmonella in raw chicken was investigated in three states of central Mexico. A total of 192 S. enterica strains from chicken meat samples collected at supermarkets, fresh markets, and butcher shops were analyzed by whole-genome sequencing. The serovar distribution, occurrence of genes encoding for antimicrobial resistance, metal resistance, biocide resistance, plasmids and virulence factors, and clonal relatedness based on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis were investigated. Serovars Infantis, Schwarzengrund and Enteritidis predominated among twenty identified. The distribution of serovars and proportion of AMR genes was different according to the state, year, season, and retail establishment (p < 0.001). Genes encoding metals resistance were identified in all the strains. A total of 145 virulence genes were identified and strains were classified into 32 virulotypes; serovars Infantis, Typhimurium, and Enteritidis showed the highest number of virulence genes. The strains matched 34 SNP clusters in the NCBI Pathogen Detection server and 59 %, which corresponded to Infantis, Schwarzengrund, Saintpaul, and Enteritidis, were associated with five major clusters and matched with chicken, environmental and clinical isolates from at least three countries. These results provide useful information to understand the epidemiology of Salmonella, conduct microbial risk assessment, and design risk-based control measures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adrián Gómez-Baltazar
- Departamento de Investigación y Posgrado de Alimentos, Facultad de Química, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Cerro de las Campanas s/n, Colonia Las Campanas, Querétaro 76010, Qro., Mexico
| | - Angélica Godínez-Oviedo
- Departamento de Investigación y Posgrado de Alimentos, Facultad de Química, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Cerro de las Campanas s/n, Colonia Las Campanas, Querétaro 76010, Qro., Mexico
| | - Luis Eduardo Segura-García
- Departamento de Salud Pública, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Biológicas y Agropecuarias, Universidad de Guadalajara, Camino Ramón Padilla Sánchez 2100, Zapopan 45200, Jalisco, Mexico
| | - Cindy Fabiola Hernández-Pérez
- Centro Nacional de Referencia en Inocuidad y Bioseguridad Agroalimentaria del SENASICA, Carretera México Pachuca Km 35.5, Tecámac. CP. 55740, Estado de México, Mexico
| | - Montserrat Hernández-Iturriaga
- Departamento de Investigación y Posgrado de Alimentos, Facultad de Química, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Cerro de las Campanas s/n, Colonia Las Campanas, Querétaro 76010, Qro., Mexico.
| | - Elisa Cabrera-Díaz
- Departamento de Salud Pública, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Biológicas y Agropecuarias, Universidad de Guadalajara, Camino Ramón Padilla Sánchez 2100, Zapopan 45200, Jalisco, Mexico.
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15
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Paganini JA, Kerkvliet JJ, Vader L, Plantinga NL, Meneses R, Corander J, Willems RJL, Arredondo-Alonso S, Schürch AC. PlasmidEC and gplas2: an optimized short-read approach to predict and reconstruct antibiotic resistance plasmids in Escherichia coli. Microb Genom 2024; 10:001193. [PMID: 38376388 PMCID: PMC10926690 DOI: 10.1099/mgen.0.001193] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/19/2023] [Accepted: 01/22/2024] [Indexed: 02/21/2024] Open
Abstract
Accurate reconstruction of Escherichia coli antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) plasmids from Illumina sequencing data has proven to be a challenge with current bioinformatic tools. In this work, we present an improved method to reconstruct E. coli plasmids using short reads. We developed plasmidEC, an ensemble classifier that identifies plasmid-derived contigs by combining the output of three different binary classification tools. We showed that plasmidEC is especially suited to classify contigs derived from ARG plasmids with a high recall of 0.941. Additionally, we optimized gplas, a graph-based tool that bins plasmid-predicted contigs into distinct plasmid predictions. Gplas2 is more effective at recovering plasmids with large sequencing coverage variations and can be combined with the output of any binary classifier. The combination of plasmidEC with gplas2 showed a high completeness (median=0.818) and F1-Score (median=0.812) when reconstructing ARG plasmids and exceeded the binning capacity of the reference-based method MOB-suite. In the absence of long-read data, our method offers an excellent alternative to reconstruct ARG plasmids in E. coli.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julian A. Paganini
- Department of Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Jesse J. Kerkvliet
- Department of Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Lisa Vader
- Department of Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Nienke L. Plantinga
- Department of Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Rodrigo Meneses
- Department of Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Jukka Corander
- Department of Biostatistics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Parasites and Microbes, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK
- Helsinki Institute of Information Technology, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Rob J. L. Willems
- Department of Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Sergio Arredondo-Alonso
- Department of Biostatistics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Parasites and Microbes, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK
| | - Anita C. Schürch
- Department of Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
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16
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Schwarzerova J, Zeman M, Babak V, Jureckova K, Nykrynova M, Varga M, Weckwerth W, Dolejska M, Provaznik V, Rychlik I, Cejkova D. Detecting horizontal gene transfer among microbiota: an innovative pipeline for identifying co-shared genes within the mobilome through advanced comparative analysis. Microbiol Spectr 2024; 12:e0196423. [PMID: 38099617 PMCID: PMC10782964 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.01964-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2023] [Accepted: 10/31/2023] [Indexed: 01/13/2024] Open
Abstract
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a key driver in the evolution of bacterial genomes. The acquisition of genes mediated by HGT may enable bacteria to adapt to ever-changing environmental conditions. Long-term application of antibiotics in intensive agriculture is associated with the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes among bacteria with the consequences causing public health concern. Commensal farm-animal-associated gut microbiota are considered the reservoir of the resistance genes. Therefore, in this study, we identified known and not-yet characterized mobilized genes originating from chicken and porcine fecal samples using our innovative pipeline followed by network analysis to provide appropriate visualization to support proper interpretation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jana Schwarzerova
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication, Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic
- Molecular Systems Biology (MOSYS), Department of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Michal Zeman
- Veterinary Research Institute, Brno, Czech Republic
| | | | - Katerina Jureckova
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication, Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic
| | - Marketa Nykrynova
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication, Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic
| | - Margaret Varga
- Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Wolfram Weckwerth
- Molecular Systems Biology (MOSYS), Department of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Vienna Metabolomics Center (VIME), University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Monika Dolejska
- Central European Institute of Technology, University of Veterinary Sciences Brno, Brno, Czech Republic
- Department of Biology and Wildlife Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Hygiene and Ecology, University of Veterinary Sciences Brno, Brno, Czech Republic
- Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Laboratory Medicine, The University Hospital Brno, Brno, Czech Republic
- Biomedical Center, Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Pilsen, Czech Republic
| | - Valentine Provaznik
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication, Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic
- Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
| | - Ivan Rychlik
- Veterinary Research Institute, Brno, Czech Republic
| | - Darina Cejkova
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication, Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic
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17
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Wang X, Zhang H, Yu S, Li D, Gillings MR, Ren H, Mao D, Guo J, Luo Y. Inter-plasmid transfer of antibiotic resistance genes accelerates antibiotic resistance in bacterial pathogens. THE ISME JOURNAL 2024; 18:wrad032. [PMID: 38366209 PMCID: PMC10881300 DOI: 10.1093/ismejo/wrad032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2023] [Revised: 12/18/2023] [Accepted: 12/18/2023] [Indexed: 02/18/2024]
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance is a major threat for public health. Plasmids play a critical role in the spread of antimicrobial resistance via horizontal gene transfer between bacterial species. However, it remains unclear how plasmids originally recruit and assemble various antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Here, we track ARG recruitment and assembly in clinically relevant plasmids by combining a systematic analysis of 2420 complete plasmid genomes and experimental validation. Results showed that ARG transfer across plasmids is prevalent, and 87% ARGs were observed to potentially transfer among various plasmids among 8229 plasmid-borne ARGs. Interestingly, recruitment and assembly of ARGs occur mostly among compatible plasmids within the same bacterial cell, with over 88% of ARG transfers occurring between compatible plasmids. Integron and insertion sequences drive the ongoing ARG acquisition by plasmids, especially in which IS26 facilitates 63.1% of ARG transfer events among plasmids. In vitro experiment validated the important role of IS26 involved in transferring gentamicin resistance gene aacC1 between compatible plasmids. Network analysis showed four beta-lactam genes (blaTEM-1, blaNDM-4, blaKPC-2, and blaSHV-1) shuffling among 1029 plasmids and 45 clinical pathogens, suggesting that clinically alarming ARGs transferred accelerate the propagation of antibiotic resistance in clinical pathogens. ARGs in plasmids are also able to transmit across clinical and environmental boundaries, in terms of the high-sequence similarities of plasmid-borne ARGs between clinical and environmental plasmids. This study demonstrated that inter-plasmid ARG transfer is a universal mechanism for plasmid to recruit various ARGs, thus advancing our understanding of the emergence of multidrug-resistant plasmids.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaolong Wang
- College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
| | - Hanhui Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
| | - Shenbo Yu
- State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
| | - Donghang Li
- School of Medicine, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
| | - Michael R Gillings
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia
| | - Hongqiang Ren
- State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
| | - Daqing Mao
- School of Medicine, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
| | - Jianhua Guo
- Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia
| | - Yi Luo
- College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
- State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
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18
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Camargo AP, Call L, Roux S, Nayfach S, Huntemann M, Palaniappan K, Ratner A, Chu K, Mukherjeep S, Reddy TBK, Chen IM, Ivanova N, Eloe-Fadrosh E, Woyke T, Baltrus D, Castañeda-Barba S, de la Cruz F, Funnell BE, Hall JJ, Mukhopadhyay A, Rocha EC, Stalder T, Top E, Kyrpides N. IMG/PR: a database of plasmids from genomes and metagenomes with rich annotations and metadata. Nucleic Acids Res 2024; 52:D164-D173. [PMID: 37930866 PMCID: PMC10767988 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad964] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2023] [Revised: 10/09/2023] [Accepted: 10/14/2023] [Indexed: 11/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Plasmids are mobile genetic elements found in many clades of Archaea and Bacteria. They drive horizontal gene transfer, impacting ecological and evolutionary processes within microbial communities, and hold substantial importance in human health and biotechnology. To support plasmid research and provide scientists with data of an unprecedented diversity of plasmid sequences, we introduce the IMG/PR database, a new resource encompassing 699 973 plasmid sequences derived from genomes, metagenomes and metatranscriptomes. IMG/PR is the first database to provide data of plasmid that were systematically identified from diverse microbiome samples. IMG/PR plasmids are associated with rich metadata that includes geographical and ecosystem information, host taxonomy, similarity to other plasmids, functional annotation, presence of genes involved in conjugation and antibiotic resistance. The database offers diverse methods for exploring its extensive plasmid collection, enabling users to navigate plasmids through metadata-centric queries, plasmid comparisons and BLAST searches. The web interface for IMG/PR is accessible at https://img.jgi.doe.gov/pr. Plasmid metadata and sequences can be downloaded from https://genome.jgi.doe.gov/portal/IMG_PR.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antonio Pedro Camargo
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Lee Call
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Simon Roux
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Stephen Nayfach
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Marcel Huntemann
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | | | - Anna Ratner
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Ken Chu
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Supratim Mukherjeep
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - T B K Reddy
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - I-Min A Chen
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Natalia N Ivanova
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Emiley A Eloe-Fadrosh
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Tanja Woyke
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - David A Baltrus
- School of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ, USA
- School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ, USA
| | | | - Fernando de la Cruz
- Instituto de Biomedicina y Biotecnología de Cantabria (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas – Universidad de Cantabria), Cantabria, Spain
| | - Barbara E Funnell
- Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1M1, Canada
| | - James P J Hall
- Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behaviour, Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZB, UK
| | - Aindrila Mukhopadhyay
- Joint BioEnergy Institute, Emeryville, CA 94608, USA
- Biological Systems and Engineering Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Eduardo P C Rocha
- Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris Cité, CNRS UMR3525, Microbial Evolutionary Genomics, Paris, France
| | - Thibault Stalder
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844, USA
| | - Eva Top
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844, USA
| | - Nikos C Kyrpides
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
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19
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Kerkvliet JJ, Bossers A, Kers JG, Meneses R, Willems R, Schürch AC. Metagenomic assembly is the main bottleneck in the identification of mobile genetic elements. PeerJ 2024; 12:e16695. [PMID: 38188174 PMCID: PMC10771768 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.16695] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/04/2023] [Accepted: 11/28/2023] [Indexed: 01/09/2024] Open
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance genes (ARG) are commonly found on acquired mobile genetic elements (MGEs) such as plasmids or transposons. Understanding the spread of resistance genes associated with mobile elements (mARGs) across different hosts and environments requires linking ARGs to the existing mobile reservoir within bacterial communities. However, reconstructing mARGs in metagenomic data from diverse ecosystems poses computational challenges, including genome fragment reconstruction (assembly), high-throughput annotation of MGEs, and identification of their association with ARGs. Recently, several bioinformatics tools have been developed to identify assembled fragments of plasmids, phages, and insertion sequence (IS) elements in metagenomic data. These methods can help in understanding the dissemination of mARGs. To streamline the process of identifying mARGs in multiple samples, we combined these tools in an automated high-throughput open-source pipeline, MetaMobilePicker, that identifies ARGs associated with plasmids, IS elements and phages, starting from short metagenomic sequencing reads. This pipeline was used to identify these three elements on a simplified simulated metagenome dataset, comprising whole genome sequences from seven clinically relevant bacterial species containing 55 ARGs, nine plasmids and five phages. The results demonstrated moderate precision for the identification of plasmids (0.57) and phages (0.71), and moderate sensitivity of identification of IS elements (0.58) and ARGs (0.70). In this study, we aim to assess the main causes of this moderate performance of the MGE prediction tools in a comprehensive manner. We conducted a systematic benchmark, considering metagenomic read coverage, contig length cutoffs and investigating the performance of the classification algorithms. Our analysis revealed that the metagenomic assembly process is the primary bottleneck when linking ARGs to identified MGEs in short-read metagenomics sequencing experiments rather than ARGs and MGEs identification by the different tools.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jesse J. Kerkvliet
- Department of Medical Microbiology, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Alex Bossers
- Utrecht University, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Wageningen University, Wageningen Bioveterinary Research, Lelystad, The Netherlands
| | - Jannigje G. Kers
- Utrecht University, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Rodrigo Meneses
- Department of Medical Microbiology, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Rob Willems
- Department of Medical Microbiology, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Anita C. Schürch
- Department of Medical Microbiology, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
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20
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Gao Y, Liu J, Fang Y, Xu X, Wang F, Tang Y, Yin D, Cookson AL, Zhu W, Mao S, Zhong R. Straw-based compost cultivation disproportionally contributes to the environmental persistence of antibiotic resistance from raw cattle manure to organic vegetables. Microbiol Res 2024; 278:127540. [PMID: 37976735 DOI: 10.1016/j.micres.2023.127540] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2023] [Revised: 10/19/2023] [Accepted: 10/30/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023]
Abstract
Cattle manure, is a reservoir of antimicrobial resistance genes, but the mechanisms by which they migrate from farm to table remain obscure. Here, we chose Agaricus bisporus as a model vegetable to examine such migration and characterized the resistome in 112 metagenomes covering samples from raw manure, composting substrates, rhizosphere, and surfaces of mushrooms. A total of 1864 resistance genes, representing 113 unique mechanisms of resistance, were identified. Monensin treatment on beef specifically enriched fecal resistance genes within Moraxellaceae, but this effect did not persist in downstream mushrooms. Interestingly, we found that resistance genes were significantly more enriched on mushroom surfaces when cultivated with corn-based compost compared to rice and wheat, likely a result of the disproportional propagation of Pseudomonadaceae and varied ability of lateral gene transfer. Importantly, our sequence alignment together with genome-centric analysis observed that 89 resistance genes, mainly conferring resistance to drug and biocide (20.22%) and mercury (19.10%), were shared across all types of samples, indicating an efficient transmission of resistance in food production. Moreover, co-occurrence of genes conferring resistance to different compounds frequently occurred in parallel with microbial migration. Together, we present the influences of antibiotic treatment and straw-based composting on resistome along the mushroom production chain (from manure to straw-based compost, rhizosphere of compost cultivated mushroom and surface of mushroom) and highlighted the risks of resistance genes migration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yunlong Gao
- Ruminant Nutrition and Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China; Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Microbiology, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Nutrition and Animal Health, National Center for International Research on Animal Gut Nutrition, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
| | - Jinxin Liu
- Ruminant Nutrition and Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China; Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Microbiology, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Nutrition and Animal Health, National Center for International Research on Animal Gut Nutrition, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China.
| | - Yi Fang
- State Key Laboratory of Black Soils Conservation and Utilization, Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Grassland Farming, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin 130102, China
| | - Xinming Xu
- State Key Laboratory of Black Soils Conservation and Utilization, Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Grassland Farming, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin 130102, China; Ruminant Nutrition and Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China; Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200030, China; Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Institute of Nutrition, Fudan University, Shanghai 200030, China
| | - Fei Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Black Soils Conservation and Utilization, Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Grassland Farming, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin 130102, China
| | - Yijun Tang
- Ruminant Nutrition and Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China; Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Microbiology, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Nutrition and Animal Health, National Center for International Research on Animal Gut Nutrition, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
| | - Di Yin
- Ruminant Nutrition and Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China; Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Microbiology, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Nutrition and Animal Health, National Center for International Research on Animal Gut Nutrition, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
| | - Adrian L Cookson
- School of Veterinary Science, Massey University, Palmerston North 4410, New Zealand; AgResearch Ltd, Hopkirk Research Institute, Massey University, Palmerston North 4410, New Zealand
| | - Weiyun Zhu
- Ruminant Nutrition and Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China; Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Microbiology, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Nutrition and Animal Health, National Center for International Research on Animal Gut Nutrition, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
| | - Shengyong Mao
- Ruminant Nutrition and Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China; Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Microbiology, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Gastrointestinal Nutrition and Animal Health, National Center for International Research on Animal Gut Nutrition, College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China.
| | - Rongzhen Zhong
- State Key Laboratory of Black Soils Conservation and Utilization, Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Grassland Farming, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin 130102, China.
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21
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Finks SS, Moudgalya P, Weihe C, Martiny JBH. The contribution of plasmids to trait diversity in a soil bacterium. ISME COMMUNICATIONS 2024; 4:ycae025. [PMID: 38584646 PMCID: PMC10999282 DOI: 10.1093/ismeco/ycae025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2024] [Revised: 02/11/2024] [Accepted: 02/12/2024] [Indexed: 04/09/2024]
Abstract
Plasmids are so closely associated with pathogens and antibiotic resistance that their potential for conferring other traits is often overlooked. Few studies consider how the full suite of traits encoded by plasmids is related to a host's environmental adaptation, particularly for Gram-positive bacteria. To investigate the role that plasmid traits might play in microbial communities from natural ecosystems, we identified plasmids carried by isolates of Curtobacterium (phylum Actinomycetota) from a variety of soil environments. We found that plasmids were common, but not ubiquitous, in the genus and varied greatly in their size and genetic diversity. There was little evidence of phylogenetic conservation among Curtobacterium plasmids even for closely related bacterial strains within the same ecotype, indicating that horizontal transmission of plasmids is common. The plasmids carried a wide diversity of traits that were not a random subset of the host chromosome. Furthermore, the composition of these plasmid traits was associated with the environmental context of the host bacterium. Together, the results indicate that plasmids contribute substantially to the microdiversity of a soil bacterium and that this diversity may play a role in niche differentiation and a bacterium's adaptation to its local environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarai S Finks
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Irvine, 321 Steinhaus Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-2525, United States
| | - Pranav Moudgalya
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Irvine, 321 Steinhaus Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-2525, United States
| | - Claudia Weihe
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Irvine, 321 Steinhaus Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-2525, United States
| | - Jennifer B H Martiny
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Irvine, 321 Steinhaus Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-2525, United States
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22
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Goff JL, Lui LM, Nielsen TN, Poole FL, Smith HJ, Walker KF, Hazen TC, Fields MW, Arkin AP, Adams MWW. Mixed waste contamination selects for a mobile genetic element population enriched in multiple heavy metal resistance genes. ISME COMMUNICATIONS 2024; 4:ycae064. [PMID: 38800128 PMCID: PMC11128244 DOI: 10.1093/ismeco/ycae064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2023] [Revised: 03/11/2024] [Indexed: 05/29/2024]
Abstract
Mobile genetic elements (MGEs) like plasmids, viruses, and transposable elements can provide fitness benefits to their hosts for survival in the presence of environmental stressors. Heavy metal resistance genes (HMRGs) are frequently observed on MGEs, suggesting that MGEs may be an important driver of adaptive evolution in environments contaminated with heavy metals. Here, we report the meta-mobilome of the heavy metal-contaminated regions of the Oak Ridge Reservation subsurface. This meta-mobilome was compared with one derived from samples collected from unimpacted regions of the Oak Ridge Reservation subsurface. We assembled 1615 unique circularized DNA elements that we propose to be MGEs. The circular elements from the highly contaminated subsurface were enriched in HMRG clusters relative to those from the nearby unimpacted regions. Additionally, we found that these HMRGs were associated with Gamma and Betaproteobacteria hosts in the contaminated subsurface and potentially facilitate the persistence and dominance of these taxa in this region. Finally, the HMRGs were associated with conjugative elements, suggesting their potential for future lateral transfer. We demonstrate how our understanding of MGE ecology, evolution, and function can be enhanced through the genomic context provided by completed MGE assemblies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer L Goff
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, United States
- Department of Chemistry, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY 13210, United States
| | - Lauren M Lui
- Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division, E.O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
| | - Torben N Nielsen
- Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division, E.O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
| | - Farris L Poole
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, United States
| | - Heidi J Smith
- Center for Biofilm Engineering, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, United States
- Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, United States
| | - Kathleen F Walker
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37916, United States
| | - Terry C Hazen
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37916, United States
- Genome Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, United States
| | - Matthew W Fields
- Center for Biofilm Engineering, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, United States
- Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, United States
| | - Adam P Arkin
- Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division, E.O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
- Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
| | - Michael W W Adams
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, United States
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23
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Yang QE, Ma X, Zeng L, Wang Q, Li M, Teng L, He M, Liu C, Zhao M, Wang M, Hui D, Madsen JS, Liao H, Walsh TR, Zhou S. Interphylum dissemination of NDM-5-positive plasmids in hospital wastewater from Fuzhou, China: a single-centre, culture-independent, plasmid transmission study. THE LANCET. MICROBE 2024; 5:e13-e23. [PMID: 38006896 DOI: 10.1016/s2666-5247(23)00227-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/06/2023] [Revised: 07/05/2023] [Accepted: 07/20/2023] [Indexed: 11/27/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND The global spread of plasmid-borne carbapenem resistance is an ongoing public health challenge; however, the nature of such horizontal gene transfer events among complex bacterial communities remains poorly understood. We examined the in-situ transfer of the globally dominant New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM)-5-positive IncX3 plasmid (denoted pX3_NDM-5) in hospital wastewater to simulate a real-world, One Health antimicrobial resistance context. METHODS For this transmission study, we tagged pX3_NDM-5 with the green fluorescent protein gene, gfp, using a CRISPR-based method and transferred the plasmid to a donor Escherichia coli strain. Bacteria were extracted from a hospital wastewater treatment plant (Fujian Provincial Maternity and Children's Hospital, Fuzhou, China) as the bacterial recipient community. We mixed this recipient community with the E coli donor strain carrying the gfp-tagged plasmid, both with and without sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) as an environmental stressor, and conducted several culture-based and culture-independent conjugation assays. The conjugation events were observed microscopically and quantified by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. We analysed the taxonomic composition of the sorted transconjugal pool by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and assessed the stability of the plasmid in the isolated transconjugants and its ability to transfer back to E coli. FINDINGS We show that the plasmid pX3_NDM-5 has a broad host range and can transfer across various bacterial phyla, including between Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. Although environmental stress with NaClO did not affect the overall plasmid transfer frequency, it reduced the breadth of the transconjugant pool. The taxonomic composition of the transconjugal pool was distinct from that of the recipient communities, and environmental stress modulated the permissiveness of some operational taxonomic units towards the acquisition of pX3_NDM-5. Notably, pX3_NDM-5 transconjugants included the Gram-positive pathogen Enterococcus faecalis, and the plasmid could subsequently be reconjugated back to E coli. These findings suggest that E faecalis could act as a natural shuttle vector for the wide dissemination of pX3_NDM-5 plasmids. INTERPRETATION Our culture-independent conjugation model simulates natural environmental conditions and challenges the established theory that Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria rarely exchange clinically important plasmids. The data show that plasmids disseminate more widely across genera and phyla than previously thought. These findings have substantial implications when considering the spread of antimicrobial resistance across One Health sectors. FUNDING The Laboratory of Lingnan Modern Agriculture Project, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China, and the Outstanding Young Research Talents Program of Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiu E Yang
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Xiaodan Ma
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Lingshuang Zeng
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Qinqin Wang
- Section of Microbiology, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Minchun Li
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Lin Teng
- Department of Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Mingzhen He
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Chen Liu
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Mengshi Zhao
- Fujian Key Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Mengzhu Wang
- Fujian Key Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Deng Hui
- Fujian Key Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Jonas Stenløkke Madsen
- Section of Microbiology, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Hanpeng Liao
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Timothy R Walsh
- Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research, Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
| | - Shungui Zhou
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Soil Environmental Health and Regulation, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China; Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Guangzhou, China.
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24
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Tamayo-Leiva J, Alcorta J, Sepúlveda F, Fuentes-Alburquenque S, Arroyo JI, González-Pastor JE, Díez B. Structure and dispersion of the conjugative mobilome in surface ocean bacterioplankton. ISME COMMUNICATIONS 2024; 4:ycae059. [PMID: 38770060 PMCID: PMC11104534 DOI: 10.1093/ismeco/ycae059] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2024] [Revised: 04/13/2024] [Accepted: 04/24/2024] [Indexed: 05/22/2024]
Abstract
Mobile genetic elements (MGEs), collectively referred to as the "mobilome", can have a significant impact on the fitness of microbial communities and therefore on ecological processes. Marine MGEs have mainly been associated with wide geographical and phylogenetic dispersal of adaptative traits. However, whether the structure of this mobilome exhibits deterministic patterns in the natural community is still an open question. The aim of this study was to characterize the structure of the conjugative mobilome in the ocean surface bacterioplankton by searching the publicly available marine metagenomes from the TARA Oceans survey, together with molecular markers, such as relaxases and type IV coupling proteins of the type IV secretion system (T4SS). The T4SS machinery was retrieved in more abundance than relaxases in the surface marine bacterioplankton. Moreover, among the identified MGEs, mobilizable elements were the most abundant, outnumbering self-conjugative sequences. Detection of a high number of incomplete T4SSs provides insight into possible strategies related to trans-acting activity between MGEs, and accessory functions of the T4SS (e.g. protein secretion), allowing the host to maintain a lower metabolic burden in the highly dynamic marine system. Additionally, the results demonstrate a wide geographical dispersion of MGEs throughout oceanic regions, while the Southern Ocean appears segregated from other regions. The marine mobilome also showed a high similarity of functions present in known plasmid databases. Moreover, cargo genes were mostly related to DNA processing, but scarcely associated with antibiotic resistance. Finally, within the MGEs, integrative and conjugative elements showed wider marine geographic dispersion than plasmids.
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Affiliation(s)
- Javier Tamayo-Leiva
- Biological Sciences Faculty, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 8331150, Chile
- Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2), University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Jaime Alcorta
- Biological Sciences Faculty, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 8331150, Chile
- Millennium Institute Center for Genome Regulation (CRG) , Santiago, Chile
| | - Felipe Sepúlveda
- Biological Sciences Faculty, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 8331150, Chile
- Millennium Institute Center for Genome Regulation (CRG) , Santiago, Chile
| | - Sebastián Fuentes-Alburquenque
- Centro de Investigación en Recursos Naturales y Sustentabilidad, Universidad Bernardo O’Higgins, Santiago, Chile
- Departamento de Matemáticas y Ciencias de la Ingeniería, Facultad de Ingeniería, Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad Bernardo O’Higgins, Santiago, Chile
| | - José Ignacio Arroyo
- Biological Sciences Faculty, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 8331150, Chile
- The Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87131, United States
- Centro de Modelamiento Matemático, Universidad de Chile, IRL 2807 CNRS Beauchef 851, Santiago, Chile
| | - José Eduardo González-Pastor
- Department of Molecular Evolution, Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA. Carretera de Ajalvir km 4, Torrejón de Ardoz 28850 Madrid, Spain
| | - Beatriz Díez
- Biological Sciences Faculty, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 8331150, Chile
- Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2), University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
- Millennium Institute Center for Genome Regulation (CRG) , Santiago, Chile
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25
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Castañeda-Barba S, Top EM, Stalder T. Plasmids, a molecular cornerstone of antimicrobial resistance in the One Health era. Nat Rev Microbiol 2024; 22:18-32. [PMID: 37430173 DOI: 10.1038/s41579-023-00926-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/08/2023] [Indexed: 07/12/2023]
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a substantial threat to human health. The widespread prevalence of AMR is, in part, due to the horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), typically mediated by plasmids. Many of the plasmid-mediated resistance genes in pathogens originate from environmental, animal or human habitats. Despite evidence that plasmids mobilize ARGs between these habitats, we have a limited understanding of the ecological and evolutionary trajectories that facilitate the emergence of multidrug resistance (MDR) plasmids in clinical pathogens. One Health, a holistic framework, enables exploration of these knowledge gaps. In this Review, we provide an overview of how plasmids drive local and global AMR spread and link different habitats. We explore some of the emerging studies integrating an eco-evolutionary perspective, opening up a discussion about the factors that affect the ecology and evolution of plasmids in complex microbial communities. Specifically, we discuss how the emergence and persistence of MDR plasmids can be affected by varying selective conditions, spatial structure, environmental heterogeneity, temporal variation and coexistence with other members of the microbiome. These factors, along with others yet to be investigated, collectively determine the emergence and transfer of plasmid-mediated AMR within and between habitats at the local and global scale.
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Affiliation(s)
- Salvador Castañeda-Barba
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA
- Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Graduate Program, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA
- Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA
| | - Eva M Top
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA
- Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Graduate Program, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA
- Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA
- Institute for Modelling Collaboration and Innovation, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA
| | - Thibault Stalder
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA.
- Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA.
- Institute for Modelling Collaboration and Innovation, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA.
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26
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Sudhakari PA, Ramisetty BCM. Resistome Diversity in Escherichia coli Isolates of Global Wastewaters. Microb Drug Resist 2024; 30:37-49. [PMID: 38150178 DOI: 10.1089/mdr.2022.0296] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health threat requiring urgent attention and effective strategies for containment. AMR is fueled by wastewater mismanagement and global mobility, disseminating multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains worldwide. While global estimates of AMR burden have been informative, community-level understanding has received little attention despite reports of high AMR prevalence in healthy communities. We assessed the "invasion" of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) into the normal human flora by characterizing AMR Escherichia coli in local wastewaters contributed by a healthy youth population. This study estimated 26% (out of 300 isolates) resistant and 59% plasmid-bearing E. coli in local wastewater. Of the 78 AMR isolates, the frequency of mono-resistance was higher against tetracycline (32%), followed by kanamycin (17%) and chloramphenicol (9%). Five isolates were potentially MDR. We further sequenced four MDRs and four sensitive strains to comprehend the genome and resistome diversity in comparison to the global wastewater E. coli (genomes from the PATRIC database). The whole-genome analysis revealed extensive genome similarity among global isolates, suggesting global dissemination and colonization of E. coli. Global wastewater resistome majorly comprised ARGs against aminoglycosides (26%), beta-lactam (17%), sulfonamide (11%), and trimethoprim (8%). Resistance to colistin, a last-resort antibiotic, was prevalent in MDRs of European and South Asian isolates. A systems approach is required to address the AMR crisis on a global scale, reduce antibiotic usage, and increase the efficiency of wastewater management and disinfection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pavithra Anantharaman Sudhakari
- Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Evolution, 312@ASK1, School of Chemical and Biotechnology, SASTRA Deemed University, Thanjavur, India
| | - Bhaskar Chandra Mohan Ramisetty
- Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Evolution, 312@ASK1, School of Chemical and Biotechnology, SASTRA Deemed University, Thanjavur, India
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27
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Alonso-del Valle A, Toribio-Celestino L, Quirant A, Pi CT, DelaFuente J, Canton R, Rocha EPC, Ubeda C, Peña-Miller R, San Millan A. Antimicrobial resistance level and conjugation permissiveness shape plasmid distribution in clinical enterobacteria. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2314135120. [PMID: 38096417 PMCID: PMC10741383 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2314135120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2023] [Accepted: 10/26/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Conjugative plasmids play a key role in the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes across bacterial pathogens. AMR plasmids are widespread in clinical settings, but their distribution is not random, and certain associations between plasmids and bacterial clones are particularly successful. For example, the globally spread carbapenem resistance plasmid pOXA-48 can use a wide range of enterobacterial species as hosts, but it is usually associated with a small number of specific Klebsiella pneumoniae clones. These successful associations represent an important threat for hospitalized patients. However, knowledge remains limited about the factors determining AMR plasmid distribution in clinically relevant bacteria. Here, we combined in vitro and in vivo experimental approaches to analyze pOXA-48-associated AMR levels and conjugation dynamics in a collection of wild-type enterobacterial strains isolated from hospitalized patients. Our results revealed significant variability in these traits across different bacterial hosts, with Klebsiella spp. strains showing higher pOXA-48-mediated AMR and conjugation frequencies than Escherichia coli strains. Using experimentally determined parameters, we developed a simple mathematical model to interrogate the contribution of AMR levels and conjugation permissiveness to plasmid distribution in bacterial communities. The simulations revealed that a small subset of clones, combining high AMR levels and conjugation permissiveness, play a critical role in stabilizing the plasmid in different polyclonal microbial communities. These results help to explain the preferential association of plasmid pOXA-48 with K. pneumoniae clones in clinical settings. More generally, our study reveals that species- and strain-specific variability in plasmid-associated phenotypes shape AMR evolution in clinically relevant bacterial communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aida Alonso-del Valle
- Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid28049, Spain
| | - Laura Toribio-Celestino
- Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid28049, Spain
| | - Anna Quirant
- Fundación para el Fomento de la Investigación Sanitaria y Biomédica de la Comunitat Valenciana, Valencia46020, Spain
| | - Carles Tardio Pi
- Centro de Ciencias Genómicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cuernavaca62209, México
- Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y en Sistemas, Unidad Académica Yucatán, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Yucatán04510, México
| | - Javier DelaFuente
- Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid28049, Spain
| | - Rafael Canton
- Servicio de Microbiología, Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal-Instituto Ramon y Cajal de Investigacion Sanitaria, Madrid28034, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biológica en Red de Enfermedades Infecciosas, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid28029, Spain
| | - Eduardo P. C. Rocha
- Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris Cité, CNRS UMR3525, Microbial Evolutionary Genomics, Paris75015, France
| | - Carles Ubeda
- Fundación para el Fomento de la Investigación Sanitaria y Biomédica de la Comunitat Valenciana, Valencia46020, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biológica en Red de Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid28029, Spain
| | - Rafael Peña-Miller
- Centro de Ciencias Genómicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cuernavaca62209, México
| | - Alvaro San Millan
- Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid28049, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biológica en Red de Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid28029, Spain
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28
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Hamilton T, Joris BR, Shrestha A, Browne TS, Rodrigue S, Karas BJ, Gloor GB, Edgell DR. De Novo Synthesis of a Conjugative System from Human Gut Metagenomic Data for Targeted Delivery of Cas9 Antimicrobials. ACS Synth Biol 2023; 12:3578-3590. [PMID: 38049144 PMCID: PMC10729033 DOI: 10.1021/acssynbio.3c00319] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2023] [Revised: 11/03/2023] [Accepted: 11/08/2023] [Indexed: 12/06/2023]
Abstract
Metagenomic sequences represent an untapped source of genetic novelty, particularly for conjugative systems that could be used for plasmid-based delivery of Cas9-derived antimicrobial agents. However, unlocking the functional potential of conjugative systems purely from metagenomic sequences requires the identification of suitable candidate systems as starting scaffolds for de novo DNA synthesis. Here, we developed a bioinformatics approach that searches through the metagenomic "trash bin" for genes associated with conjugative systems present on contigs that are typically excluded from common metagenomic analysis pipelines. Using a human metagenomic gut data set representing 2805 taxonomically distinct units, we identified 1598 contigs containing conjugation genes with a differential distribution in human cohorts. We synthesized de novo an entire Citrobacter spp. conjugative system of 54 kb containing at least 47 genes and assembled it into a plasmid, pCitro. We found that pCitro conjugates from Escherichia coli to Citrobacter rodentium with a 30-fold higher frequency than to E. coli, and is compatible with Citrobacter resident plasmids. Mutations in the traV and traY conjugation components of pCitro inhibited conjugation. We showed that pCitro can be repurposed as an antimicrobial delivery agent by programming it with the TevCas9 nuclease and Citrobacter-specific sgRNAs to kill C. rodentium. Our study reveals a trove of uncharacterized conjugative systems in metagenomic data and describes an experimental framework to animate these large genetic systems as novel target-adapted delivery vectors for Cas9-based editing of bacterial genomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas
A. Hamilton
- Department
of Biochemistry, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London N6A 5C1, ON, Canada
| | - Benjamin R. Joris
- Department
of Biochemistry, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London N6A 5C1, ON, Canada
| | - Arina Shrestha
- Department
of Biochemistry, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London N6A 5C1, ON, Canada
| | - Tyler S. Browne
- Department
of Biochemistry, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London N6A 5C1, ON, Canada
| | - Sébastien Rodrigue
- Départment
de Biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke J1K 2R1, QC, Canada
| | - Bogumil J. Karas
- Department
of Biochemistry, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London N6A 5C1, ON, Canada
| | - Gregory B. Gloor
- Department
of Biochemistry, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London N6A 5C1, ON, Canada
| | - David R. Edgell
- Department
of Biochemistry, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London N6A 5C1, ON, Canada
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29
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Wheeler NE, Price V, Cunningham-Oakes E, Tsang KK, Nunn JG, Midega JT, Anjum MF, Wade MJ, Feasey NA, Peacock SJ, Jauneikaite E, Baker KS. Innovations in genomic antimicrobial resistance surveillance. THE LANCET. MICROBE 2023; 4:e1063-e1070. [PMID: 37977163 DOI: 10.1016/s2666-5247(23)00285-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2023] [Revised: 08/16/2023] [Accepted: 08/22/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023]
Abstract
Whole-genome sequencing of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens is increasingly being used for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance, particularly in high-income countries. Innovations in genome sequencing and analysis technologies promise to revolutionise AMR surveillance and epidemiology; however, routine adoption of these technologies is challenging, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries. As part of a wider series of workshops and online consultations, a group of experts in AMR pathogen genomics and computational tool development conducted a situational analysis, identifying the following under-used innovations in genomic AMR surveillance: clinical metagenomics, environmental metagenomics, gene or plasmid tracking, and machine learning. The group recommended developing cost-effective use cases for each approach and mapping data outputs to clinical outcomes of interest to justify additional investment in capacity, training, and staff required to implement these technologies. Harmonisation and standardisation of methods, and the creation of equitable data sharing and governance frameworks, will facilitate successful implementation of these innovations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicole E Wheeler
- Institute of Microbiology and Infection, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, Edgbaston, UK
| | - Vivien Price
- Department of Clinical Infection, Immunology and Microbiology, Liverpool Centre for Global Health Research, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
| | - Edward Cunningham-Oakes
- Department of Infection Biology and Microbiomes, Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
| | - Kara K Tsang
- Department of Infection Biology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK
| | - Jamie G Nunn
- Infectious Disease Challenge Area, Wellcome Trust, London, UK
| | | | - Muna F Anjum
- Department of Bacteriology, Animal and Plant Health Agency, Surrey, UK
| | - Matthew J Wade
- Data Analytics and Surveillance Group, UK Health Security Agency, London, UK; School of Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK
| | - Nicholas A Feasey
- Clinical Sciences, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK; Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Research Programme, Chichiri, Blantyre, Malawi
| | | | - Elita Jauneikaite
- Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK; NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance, Department of Infectious Disease, Imperial College London, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK
| | - Kate S Baker
- Centre for Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK; Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
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30
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Xu Y, Liu J, You G, Yang Z, Miao L, Wu J, Yang G, Hou J. A quaternary ammonium salt grafted tannin-based flocculant boosts the conjugative transfer of plasmid-born antibiotic resistance genes: The nonnegligible side of their flocculation-sterilization properties. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2023; 901:166515. [PMID: 37619725 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166515] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2023] [Revised: 08/07/2023] [Accepted: 08/21/2023] [Indexed: 08/26/2023]
Abstract
This study developed dual-function tannin-based flocculants, namely tannin-graft-acrylamide-diallyl dimethyl ammonium chloride (TGCC-A/TGCC-C), endowed with enhanced flocculation-sterilization properties. The impacts of these flocculants on proliferation and transformation of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) among bacteria during the flocculation-deposition process were examined. TGCC-A/TGCC-C exhibited remarkable flocculation capacities towards both Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, encompassing a logarithmic range of initial cell density (108-109 CFU/mL) and a broad pH spectrum (pH 2-11). The grafted quaternary ammonium salt groups played pivotal parts in flocculation through charge neutralization and bridging mechanisms, concurrently contributing to sterilization by disrupting cellular membranes. The correlation between flocculation and sterilization entails a sequential progression, where an excess of TGCC, initially employed for flocculation, is subsequently consumed for sterilization purposes. The frequencies of ARGs conjugative transfer were enhanced in bacterial flocs across all TGCC treatments, stemming from augmented bacterial aggregation and cell membrane permeability, elicited stress response, and up-regulated genes encoding plasmid transfer. These findings underscore the indispensable role of flocculation-sterilization effects in mediating the propagation of ARGs, consequently providing substantial support for the scientific evaluation of the environmental risks associated with flocculants in the context of ARGs dissemination during the treatment of raw water featuring high bacterial density.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi Xu
- College of Agricultural Science and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, People's Republic of China
| | - Jialin Liu
- Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resources Development on Shallow Lakes of Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, People's Republic of China
| | - Guoxiang You
- Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resources Development on Shallow Lakes of Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, People's Republic of China.
| | - Zijun Yang
- Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resources Development on Shallow Lakes of Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, People's Republic of China
| | - Lingzhan Miao
- Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resources Development on Shallow Lakes of Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, People's Republic of China
| | - Jun Wu
- Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resources Development on Shallow Lakes of Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, People's Republic of China
| | - Guang Yang
- Chinese Acad Sci, Res Ctr Ecoenvironm Sci, State Key Lab Urban & Reg Ecol, Beijing 100085, People's Republic of China
| | - Jun Hou
- Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resources Development on Shallow Lakes of Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, People's Republic of China
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31
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Diebold PJ, Rhee MW, Shi Q, Trung NV, Umrani F, Ahmed S, Kulkarni V, Deshpande P, Alexander M, Thi Hoa N, Christakis NA, Iqbal NT, Ali SA, Mathad JS, Brito IL. Clinically relevant antibiotic resistance genes are linked to a limited set of taxa within gut microbiome worldwide. Nat Commun 2023; 14:7366. [PMID: 37963868 PMCID: PMC10645880 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42998-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2023] [Accepted: 10/27/2023] [Indexed: 11/16/2023] Open
Abstract
The acquisition of antimicrobial resistance (AR) genes has rendered important pathogens nearly or fully unresponsive to antibiotics. It has been suggested that pathogens acquire AR traits from the gut microbiota, which collectively serve as a global reservoir for AR genes conferring resistance to all classes of antibiotics. However, only a subset of AR genes confers resistance to clinically relevant antibiotics, and, although these AR gene profiles are well-characterized for common pathogens, less is known about their taxonomic associations and transfer potential within diverse members of the gut microbiota. We examined a collection of 14,850 human metagenomes and 1666 environmental metagenomes from 33 countries, in addition to nearly 600,000 isolate genomes, to gain insight into the global prevalence and taxonomic range of clinically relevant AR genes. We find that several of the most concerning AR genes, such as those encoding the cephalosporinase CTX-M and carbapenemases KPC, IMP, NDM, and VIM, remain taxonomically restricted to Proteobacteria. Even cfiA, the most common carbapenemase gene within the human gut microbiome, remains tightly restricted to Bacteroides, despite being found on a mobilizable plasmid. We confirmed these findings in gut microbiome samples from India, Honduras, Pakistan, and Vietnam, using a high-sensitivity single-cell fusion PCR approach. Focusing on a set of genes encoding carbapenemases and cephalosporinases, thus far restricted to Bacteroides species, we find that few mutations are required for efficacy in a different phylum, raising the question of why these genes have not spread more widely. Overall, these data suggest that globally prevalent, clinically relevant AR genes have not yet established themselves across diverse commensal gut microbiota.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter J Diebold
- Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - Matthew W Rhee
- Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - Qiaojuan Shi
- Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - Nguyen Vinh Trung
- Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) in Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh city, Viet Nam
| | | | | | - Vandana Kulkarni
- Johns Hopkins University Clinical Trials Unit, Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India
| | - Prasad Deshpande
- Johns Hopkins University Clinical Trials Unit, Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India
| | - Mallika Alexander
- Johns Hopkins University Clinical Trials Unit, Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India
| | - Ngo Thi Hoa
- Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) in Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh city, Viet Nam
- Centre for Tropical Medicine, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Microbiology Department and Center for Tropical Medicine Research, Ngoc Thach University of Medicine, Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam
| | | | | | | | | | - Ilana L Brito
- Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
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32
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Wang B, Finazzo M, Artsimovitch I. Machine Learning Suggests That Small Size Helps Broaden Plasmid Host Range. Genes (Basel) 2023; 14:2044. [PMID: 38002987 PMCID: PMC10670969 DOI: 10.3390/genes14112044] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2023] [Revised: 11/01/2023] [Accepted: 11/02/2023] [Indexed: 11/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Plasmids mediate gene exchange across taxonomic barriers through conjugation, shaping bacterial evolution for billions of years. While plasmid mobility can be harnessed for genetic engineering and drug-delivery applications, rapid plasmid-mediated spread of resistance genes has rendered most clinical antibiotics useless. To solve this urgent and growing problem, we must understand how plasmids spread across bacterial communities. Here, we applied machine-learning models to identify features that are important for extending the plasmid host range. We assembled an up-to-date dataset of more than thirty thousand bacterial plasmids, separated them into 1125 clusters, and assigned each cluster a distribution possibility score, taking into account the host distribution of each taxonomic rank and the sampling bias of the existing sequencing data. Using this score and an optimized plasmid feature pool, we built a model stack consisting of DecisionTreeRegressor, EvoTreeRegressor, and LGBMRegressor as base models and LinearRegressor as a meta-learner. Our mathematical modeling revealed that sequence brevity is the most important determinant for plasmid spread, followed by P-loop NTPases, mobility factors, and β-lactamases. Ours and other recent results suggest that small plasmids may broaden their range by evading host defenses and using alternative modes of transfer instead of autonomous conjugation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bing Wang
- Department of Microbiology and Center for RNA Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA;
| | | | - Irina Artsimovitch
- Department of Microbiology and Center for RNA Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA;
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33
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Kosterlitz O, Grassi N, Werner B, McGee RS, Top EM, Kerr B. Evolutionary "Crowdsourcing": Alignment of Fitness Landscapes Allows for Cross-species Adaptation of a Horizontally Transferred Gene. Mol Biol Evol 2023; 40:msad237. [PMID: 37931146 PMCID: PMC10657783 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msad237] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2023] [Revised: 09/15/2023] [Accepted: 10/10/2023] [Indexed: 11/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Genes that undergo horizontal gene transfer (HGT) evolve in different genomic backgrounds. Despite the ubiquity of cross-species HGT, the effects of switching hosts on gene evolution remains understudied. Here, we present a framework to examine the evolutionary consequences of host-switching and apply this framework to an antibiotic resistance gene commonly found on conjugative plasmids. Specifically, we determined the adaptive landscape of this gene for a small set of mutationally connected genotypes in 3 enteric species. We uncovered that the landscape topographies were largely aligned with minimal host-dependent mutational effects. By simulating gene evolution over the experimentally gauged landscapes, we found that the adaptive evolution of the mobile gene in one species translated to adaptation in another. By simulating gene evolution over artificial landscapes, we found that sufficient alignment between landscapes ensures such "adaptive equivalency" across species. Thus, given adequate landscape alignment within a bacterial community, vehicles of HGT such as plasmids may enable a distributed form of genetic evolution across community members, where species can "crowdsource" adaptation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Olivia Kosterlitz
- Biology Department, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
| | - Nathan Grassi
- Biology Department, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | - Bailey Werner
- Biology Department, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | - Ryan Seamus McGee
- BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, Washington University, St.Louis, MO 63110, USA
| | - Eva M Top
- BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
- Department of Biological Sciences and Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844, USA
| | - Benjamin Kerr
- Biology Department, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
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34
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Van Camp PJ, Prasath VBS, Haslam DB, Porollo A. MGS2AMR: a gene-centric mining of metagenomic sequencing data for pathogens and their antimicrobial resistance profile. MICROBIOME 2023; 11:223. [PMID: 37833777 PMCID: PMC10571262 DOI: 10.1186/s40168-023-01674-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2023] [Accepted: 09/21/2023] [Indexed: 10/15/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Identification of pathogenic bacteria from clinical specimens and evaluating their antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are laborious tasks that involve in vitro cultivation, isolation, and susceptibility testing. Recently, a number of methods have been developed that use machine learning algorithms applied to the whole-genome sequencing data of isolates to approach this problem. However, making AMR assessments from more easily available metagenomic sequencing data remains a big challenge. RESULTS We present the Metagenomic Sequencing to Antimicrobial Resistance (MGS2AMR) pipeline, which detects antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) and their possible organism of origin within a sequenced metagenomics sample. This in silico method allows for the evaluation of bacterial AMR directly from clinical specimens, such as stool samples. We have developed two new algorithms to optimize and annotate the genomic assembly paths within the raw Graphical Fragment Assembly (GFA): the GFA Linear Optimal Path through seed segments (GLOPS) algorithm and the Adapted Dijkstra Algorithm for GFA (ADAG). These novel algorithms improve the sensitivity of ARG detection and aid in species annotation. Tests based on 1200 microbiome samples show a high ARG recall rate and correct assignment of the ARG origin. The MGS2AMR output can further be used in many downstream applications, such as evaluating AMR to specific antibiotics in samples from emerging intestinal infections. We demonstrate that the MGS2AMR-derived data is as informative for the entailing prediction models as the whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data. The performance of these models is on par with our previously published method (WGS2AMR), which is based on the sequencing data of bacterial isolates. CONCLUSIONS MGS2AMR can provide researchers with valuable insights into the AMR content of microbiome environments and may potentially improve patient care by providing faster quantification of resistance against specific antibiotics, thereby reducing the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics. The presented pipeline also has potential applications in other metagenome analyses focused on the defined sets of genes. Video Abstract.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pieter-Jan Van Camp
- Division of Biomedical Informatics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, 45229, USA
| | - V B Surya Prasath
- Division of Biomedical Informatics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, 45229, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 45267, USA
| | - David B Haslam
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 45267, USA
- Division of Infectious Diseases, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, 45229, USA
| | - Aleksey Porollo
- Division of Biomedical Informatics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, 45229, USA.
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 45267, USA.
- Center for Autoimmune Genomics and Etiology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, 45229, USA.
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35
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Balbuena-Alonso MG, Camps M, Cortés-Cortés G, Carreón-León EA, Lozano-Zarain P, Rocha-Gracia RDC. Strain belonging to an emerging, virulent sublineage of ST131 Escherichia coli isolated in fresh spinach, suggesting that ST131 may be transmissible through agricultural products. Front Cell Infect Microbiol 2023; 13:1237725. [PMID: 37876872 PMCID: PMC10591226 DOI: 10.3389/fcimb.2023.1237725] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2023] [Accepted: 09/15/2023] [Indexed: 10/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Food contamination with pathogenic Escherichia coli can cause severe disease. Here, we report the isolation of a multidrug resistant strain (A23EC) from fresh spinach. A23EC belongs to subclade C2 of ST131, a virulent clone of Extraintestinal Pathogenic E. coli (ExPEC). Most A23EC virulence factors are concentrated in three pathogenicity islands. These include PapGII, a fimbrial tip adhesin linked to increased virulence, and CsgA and CsgB, two adhesins known to facilitate spinach leaf colonization. A23EC also bears TnMB1860, a chromosomally-integrated transposon with the demonstrated potential to facilitate the evolution of carbapenem resistance among non-carbapenemase-producing enterobacterales. This transposon consists of two IS26-bound modular translocatable units (TUs). The first TU carries aac(6')-lb-cr, bla OXA-1, ΔcatB3, aac(3)-lle, and tmrB, and the second one harbors bla CXT-M-15. A23EC also bears a self-transmissible plasmid that can mediate conjugation at 20°C and that has a mosaic IncF [F(31,36):A(4,20):B1] and Col156 origin of replication. Comparing A23EC to 86 additional complete ST131 sequences, A23EC forms a monophyletic cluster with 17 other strains that share the following four genomic traits: (1) virotype E (papGII+); (2) presence of a PAI II536-like pathogenicity island with an additional cnf1 gene; (3) presence of chromosomal TnMB1860; and (4) frequent presence of an F(31,36):A(4,20):B1 plasmid. Sequences belonging to this cluster (which we named "C2b sublineage") are highly enriched in septicemia samples and their associated genetic markers align with recent reports of an emerging, virulent sublineage of the C2 subclade, suggesting significant pathogenic potential. This is the first report of a ST131 strain belonging to subclade C2 contaminating green leafy vegetables. The detection of this uropathogenic clone in fresh food is alarming. This work suggests that ST131 continues to evolve, gaining selective advantages and new routes of transmission. This highlights the pressing need for rigorous epidemiological surveillance of ExPEC in vegetables with One Health perspective.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria G. Balbuena-Alonso
- Posgrado en Microbiología, Centro de Investigaciones Microbiológicas, Instituto de Ciencias, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
| | - Manel Camps
- Departament of Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, United States
| | - Gerardo Cortés-Cortés
- Posgrado en Microbiología, Centro de Investigaciones Microbiológicas, Instituto de Ciencias, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
- Departament of Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, United States
| | - Eder A. Carreón-León
- Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico
| | - Patricia Lozano-Zarain
- Posgrado en Microbiología, Centro de Investigaciones Microbiológicas, Instituto de Ciencias, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
| | - Rosa del Carmen Rocha-Gracia
- Posgrado en Microbiología, Centro de Investigaciones Microbiológicas, Instituto de Ciencias, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
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36
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Teixeira M, Pillay S, Urhan A, Abeel T. SHIP: identifying antimicrobial resistance gene transfer between plasmids. Bioinformatics 2023; 39:btad612. [PMID: 37796811 PMCID: PMC10598575 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btad612] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2023] [Revised: 08/29/2023] [Accepted: 10/04/2023] [Indexed: 10/07/2023] Open
Abstract
MOTIVATION Plasmids are carriers for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes and can exchange genetic material with other structures, contributing to the spread of AMR. There is no reliable approach to identify the transfer of AMR genes across plasmids. This is mainly due to the absence of a method to assess the phylogenetic distance of plasmids, as they show large DNA sequence variability. Identifying and quantifying such transfer can provide novel insight into the role of small mobile elements and resistant plasmid regions in the spread of AMR. RESULTS We developed SHIP, a novel method to quantify plasmid similarity based on the dynamics of plasmid evolution. This allowed us to find conserved fragments containing AMR genes in structurally different and phylogenetically distant plasmids, which is evidence for lateral transfer. Our results show that regions carrying AMR genes are highly mobilizable between plasmids through transposons, integrons, and recombination events, and contribute to the spread of AMR. Identified transferred fragments include a multi-resistant complex class 1 integron in Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae, and a region encoding tetracycline resistance transferred through recombination in Enterococcus faecalis. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION The code developed in this work is available at https://github.com/AbeelLab/plasmidHGT.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marco Teixeira
- Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Porto 4200-465, Portugal
- INESC TEC—Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science, Porto 4200-465, Portugal
- Delft Bioinformatics Lab, Delft University of Technology, Van Mourik Broekmanweg 6, Delft 2628 XE, The Netherlands
| | - Stephanie Pillay
- Delft Bioinformatics Lab, Delft University of Technology, Van Mourik Broekmanweg 6, Delft 2628 XE, The Netherlands
| | - Aysun Urhan
- Delft Bioinformatics Lab, Delft University of Technology, Van Mourik Broekmanweg 6, Delft 2628 XE, The Netherlands
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, United States
| | - Thomas Abeel
- Delft Bioinformatics Lab, Delft University of Technology, Van Mourik Broekmanweg 6, Delft 2628 XE, The Netherlands
- Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, United States
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37
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Marsh JW, Kirk C, Ley RE. Toward Microbiome Engineering: Expanding the Repertoire of Genetically Tractable Members of the Human Gut Microbiome. Annu Rev Microbiol 2023; 77:427-449. [PMID: 37339736 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-micro-032421-112304] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/22/2023]
Abstract
Genetic manipulation is necessary to interrogate the functions of microbes in their environments, such as the human gut microbiome. Yet, the vast majority of human gut microbiome species are not genetically tractable. Here, we review the hurdles to seizing genetic control of more species. We address the barriers preventing the application of genetic techniques to gut microbes and report on genetic systems currently under development. While methods aimed at genetically transforming many species simultaneously in situ show promise, they are unable to overcome many of the same challenges that exist for individual microbes. Unless a major conceptual breakthrough emerges, the genetic tractability of the microbiome will remain an arduous task. Increasing the list of genetically tractable organisms from the human gut remains one of the highest priorities for microbiome research and will provide the foundation for microbiome engineering.
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Affiliation(s)
- James W Marsh
- Department of Microbiome Science, Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tübingen, Germany;
| | - Christian Kirk
- Department of Microbiome Science, Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tübingen, Germany;
| | - Ruth E Ley
- Department of Microbiome Science, Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tübingen, Germany;
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38
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Weisberg AJ, Chang JH. Mobile Genetic Element Flexibility as an Underlying Principle to Bacterial Evolution. Annu Rev Microbiol 2023; 77:603-624. [PMID: 37437216 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-micro-032521-022006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/14/2023]
Abstract
Mobile genetic elements are key to the evolution of bacteria and traits that affect host and ecosystem health. Here, we use a framework of a hierarchical and modular system that scales from genes to populations to synthesize recent findings on mobile genetic elements (MGEs) of bacteria. Doing so highlights the role that emergent properties of flexibility, robustness, and genetic capacitance of MGEs have on the evolution of bacteria. Some of their traits can be stored, shared, and diversified across different MGEs, taxa of bacteria, and time. Collectively, these properties contribute to maintaining functionality against perturbations while allowing changes to accumulate in order to diversify and give rise to new traits. These properties of MGEs have long challenged our abilities to study them. Implementation of new technologies and strategies allows for MGEs to be analyzed in new and powerful ways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandra J Weisberg
- Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA;
| | - Jeff H Chang
- Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA;
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39
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Chan WT, Garcillán-Barcia MP, Yeo CC, Espinosa M. Type II bacterial toxin-antitoxins: hypotheses, facts, and the newfound plethora of the PezAT system. FEMS Microbiol Rev 2023; 47:fuad052. [PMID: 37715317 PMCID: PMC10532202 DOI: 10.1093/femsre/fuad052] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2023] [Revised: 08/24/2023] [Accepted: 09/07/2023] [Indexed: 09/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are entities found in the prokaryotic genomes, with eight reported types. Type II, the best characterized, is comprised of two genes organized as an operon. Whereas toxins impair growth, the cognate antitoxin neutralizes its activity. TAs appeared to be involved in plasmid maintenance, persistence, virulence, and defence against bacteriophages. Most Type II toxins target the bacterial translational machinery. They seem to be antecessors of Higher Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes Nucleotide-binding (HEPN) RNases, minimal nucleotidyltransferase domains, or CRISPR-Cas systems. A total of four TAs encoded by Streptococcus pneumoniae, RelBE, YefMYoeB, Phd-Doc, and HicAB, belong to HEPN-RNases. The fifth is represented by PezAT/Epsilon-Zeta. PezT/Zeta toxins phosphorylate the peptidoglycan precursors, thereby blocking cell wall synthesis. We explore the body of knowledge (facts) and hypotheses procured for Type II TAs and analyse the data accumulated on the PezAT family. Bioinformatics analyses showed that homologues of PezT/Zeta toxin are abundantly distributed among 14 bacterial phyla mostly in Proteobacteria (48%), Firmicutes (27%), and Actinobacteria (18%), showing the widespread distribution of this TA. The pezAT locus was found to be mainly chromosomally encoded whereas its homologue, the tripartite omega-epsilon-zeta locus, was found mostly on plasmids. We found several orphan pezT/zeta toxins, unaccompanied by a cognate antitoxin.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wai Ting Chan
- Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas Margarita Salas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Ramiro de Maeztu, 9, 28040 Madrid, Spain
| | - Maria Pilar Garcillán-Barcia
- Instituto de Biomedicina y Biotecnología de Cantabria (IBBTEC), Universidad de Cantabria-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, C/Albert Einstein 22, PCTCAN, 39011 Santander, Spain
| | - Chew Chieng Yeo
- Centre for Research in Infectious Diseases and Biotechnology (CeRIDB), Faculty of Medicine
, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Jalan Sultan Mahumd, 20400 Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia
| | - Manuel Espinosa
- Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas Margarita Salas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Ramiro de Maeztu, 9, 28040 Madrid, Spain
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Pazra DF, Latif H, Basri C, Wibawan IWT, Rahayu P. Detection of tetracycline resistance genes and their diversity in Escherichia coli isolated from pig farm waste in Banten province, Indonesia. Vet World 2023; 16:1907-1916. [PMID: 37859956 PMCID: PMC10583874 DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2023.1907-1916] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2023] [Accepted: 08/17/2023] [Indexed: 10/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Background and Aim Livestock waste in the form of feces and liquid represents an important reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Because many ARGs can be horizontally transferred to other pathogens, livestock waste plays an essential role in the emergence and transmission of various ARGs in the environment. Therefore, this study aimed to detect and assess the diversity of tet genes in Escherichia coli isolated from pig farm waste in Banten province, Indonesia. Materials and Methods Solid waste (feces) and wastewater were collected from 44 pig farms in Banten province. The isolation and identification of E. coli referred to the Global Tricycle Surveillance extended-spectrum beta-lactamase E. coli World Health Organization (2021) guidelines. tet genes were detected using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction after dividing pig farms in the province into four clusters based on their adjacent areas and characteristics. Results tetA, tetB, tetC, tetM, tetO, and tetX were detected in solid waste and wastewater from pig farms, whereas tetE was not detected in either sample type. tetX (100%) and tetO (75%) were the most dominant genes in solid waste, whereas wastewater samples were dominated by tetA, tetM, tetO, and tetX (prevalence of 50% each). Furthermore, eight tet gene patterns were found in pig farm waste (prevalence of 12.5% each). Conclusion The results showed a high prevalence of tetO and tetX in solid waste and wastewater from pig farms in Banten province. This significant prevalence and diversity indicated the transmission of tet genes from pigs to the environment, posing a serious threat to public health.
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Affiliation(s)
- Debby Fadhilah Pazra
- Animal Biomedical Science Study Program, School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (SVMBS), IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia
- Bogor Agricultural Development Polytechnic, Bogor, Indonesia
| | - Hadri Latif
- Division of Veterinary Public Health and Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (SVMBS), IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia
| | - Chaerul Basri
- Division of Veterinary Public Health and Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (SVMBS), IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia
| | - I. Wayan Teguh Wibawan
- Division of Medical Microbiology, School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (SVMBS), IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia
| | - Puji Rahayu
- Quality Control Laboratory and Certification of Animal Products, Bogor, Indonesia
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Arredondo-Alonso S, Gladstone R, Pöntinen A, Gama J, Schürch A, Lanza V, Johnsen P, Samuelsen Ø, Tonkin-Hill G, Corander J. Mge-cluster: a reference-free approach for typing bacterial plasmids. NAR Genom Bioinform 2023; 5:lqad066. [PMID: 37435357 PMCID: PMC10331934 DOI: 10.1093/nargab/lqad066] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2023] [Revised: 06/08/2023] [Accepted: 06/26/2023] [Indexed: 07/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Extrachromosomal elements of bacterial cells such as plasmids are notorious for their importance in evolution and adaptation to changing ecology. However, high-resolution population-wide analysis of plasmids has only become accessible recently with the advent of scalable long-read sequencing technology. Current typing methods for the classification of plasmids remain limited in their scope which motivated us to develop a computationally efficient approach to simultaneously recognize novel types and classify plasmids into previously identified groups. Here, we introduce mge-cluster that can easily handle thousands of input sequences which are compressed using a unitig representation in a de Bruijn graph. Our approach offers a faster runtime than existing algorithms, with moderate memory usage, and enables an intuitive visualization, classification and clustering scheme that users can explore interactively within a single framework. Mge-cluster platform for plasmid analysis can be easily distributed and replicated, enabling a consistent labelling of plasmids across past, present, and future sequence collections. We underscore the advantages of our approach by analysing a population-wide plasmid data set obtained from the opportunistic pathogen Escherichia coli, studying the prevalence of the colistin resistance gene mcr-1.1 within the plasmid population, and describing an instance of resistance plasmid transmission within a hospital environment.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Anna K Pöntinen
- Department of Biostatistics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Detection of Antimicrobial Resistance, Department of Microbiology and Infection Control, University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, Norway
| | - João A Gama
- Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
| | - Anita C Schürch
- Department of Medical Microbiology, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Val F Lanza
- CIBERINFEC, Madrid, Spain
- Bioinformatics Unit, University Hospital Ramón y Cajal, IRYCIS, Madrid, Spain
| | - Pål Jarle Johnsen
- Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
| | - Ørjan Samuelsen
- Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Detection of Antimicrobial Resistance, Department of Microbiology and Infection Control, University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, Norway
- Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
| | - Gerry Tonkin-Hill
- Department of Biostatistics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Parasites and Microbes, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK
| | - Jukka Corander
- Department of Biostatistics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Parasites and Microbes, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Helsinki Institute of Information Technology (HIIT), FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
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Diorio-Toth L, Wallace MA, Farnsworth CW, Wang B, Gul D, Kwon JH, Andleeb S, Burnham CAD, Dantas G. Intensive care unit sinks are persistently colonized with multidrug resistant bacteria and mobilizable, resistance-conferring plasmids. mSystems 2023; 8:e0020623. [PMID: 37439570 PMCID: PMC10469867 DOI: 10.1128/msystems.00206-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2023] [Accepted: 05/02/2023] [Indexed: 07/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Contamination of hospital sinks with microbial pathogens presents a serious potential threat to patients, but our understanding of sink colonization dynamics is largely based on infection outbreaks. Here, we investigate the colonization patterns of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) in intensive care unit sinks and water from two hospitals in the USA and Pakistan collected over 27 months of prospective sampling. Using culture-based methods, we recovered 822 bacterial isolates representing 104 unique species and genomospecies. Genomic analyses revealed long-term colonization by Pseudomonas spp. and Serratia marcescens strains across multiple rooms. Nanopore sequencing uncovered examples of long-term persistence of resistance-conferring plasmids in unrelated hosts. These data indicate that antibiotic resistance (AR) in Pseudomonas spp. is maintained both by strain colonization and horizontal gene transfer (HGT), while HGT maintains AR within Acinetobacter spp. and Enterobacterales, independent of colonization. These results emphasize the importance of proactive, genomic-focused surveillance of built environments to mitigate MDRO spread. IMPORTANCE Hospital sinks are frequently linked to outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Here, we used whole-genome sequencing to track the long-term colonization patterns in intensive care unit (ICU) sinks and water from two hospitals in the USA and Pakistan collected over 27 months of prospective sampling. We analyzed 822 bacterial genomes, representing over 100 different species. We identified long-term contamination by opportunistic pathogens, as well as transient appearance of other common pathogens. We found that bacteria recovered from the ICU had more antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in their genomes compared to matched community spaces. We also found that many of these ARGs are harbored on mobilizable plasmids, which were found shared in the genomes of unrelated bacteria. Overall, this study provides an in-depth view of contamination patterns for common nosocomial pathogens and identifies specific targets for surveillance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luke Diorio-Toth
- The Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
| | - Meghan A. Wallace
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Division of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
| | - Christopher W. Farnsworth
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Division of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
| | - Bin Wang
- The Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Division of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
| | - Danish Gul
- Atta ur Rahman School of Applied Biosciences, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan
| | - Jennie H. Kwon
- Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
| | - Saadia Andleeb
- Atta ur Rahman School of Applied Biosciences, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan
| | - Carey-Ann D. Burnham
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Division of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
| | - Gautam Dantas
- The Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Department of Pathology and Immunology, Division of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
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Tang X, Shang J, Ji Y, Sun Y. PLASMe: a tool to identify PLASMid contigs from short-read assemblies using transformer. Nucleic Acids Res 2023; 51:e83. [PMID: 37427782 PMCID: PMC10450166 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad578] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2022] [Revised: 06/19/2023] [Accepted: 06/26/2023] [Indexed: 07/11/2023] Open
Abstract
Plasmids are mobile genetic elements that carry important accessory genes. Cataloging plasmids is a fundamental step to elucidate their roles in promoting horizontal gene transfer between bacteria. Next generation sequencing (NGS) is the main source for discovering new plasmids today. However, NGS assembly programs tend to return contigs, making plasmid detection difficult. This problem is particularly grave for metagenomic assemblies, which contain short contigs of heterogeneous origins. Available tools for plasmid contig detection still suffer from some limitations. In particular, alignment-based tools tend to miss diverged plasmids while learning-based tools often have lower precision. In this work, we develop a plasmid detection tool PLASMe that capitalizes on the strength of alignment and learning-based methods. Closely related plasmids can be easily identified using the alignment component in PLASMe while diverged plasmids can be predicted using order-specific Transformer models. By encoding plasmid sequences as a language defined on the protein cluster-based token set, Transformer can learn the importance of proteins and their correlation through positionally token embedding and the attention mechanism. We compared PLASMe and other tools on detecting complete plasmids, plasmid contigs, and contigs assembled from CAMI2 simulated data. PLASMe achieved the highest F1-score. After validating PLASMe on data with known labels, we also tested it on real metagenomic and plasmidome data. The examination of some commonly used marker genes shows that PLASMe exhibits more reliable performance than other tools.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xubo Tang
- Department of Electrical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Jiayu Shang
- Department of Electrical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Yongxin Ji
- Department of Electrical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Yanni Sun
- Department of Electrical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
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Yang L, Mai G, Hu Z, Zhou H, Dai L, Deng Z, Ma Y. Global transmission of broad-host-range plasmids derived from the human gut microbiome. Nucleic Acids Res 2023; 51:8005-8019. [PMID: 37283060 PMCID: PMC10450197 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad498] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2022] [Revised: 05/15/2023] [Accepted: 05/26/2023] [Indexed: 06/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Broad-host-range (BHR) plasmids in human gut bacteria are of considerable interest for their ability to mediate horizontal gene transfer (HGT) across large phylogenetic distance. However, the human gut plasmids, especially the BHR plasmids, remain largely unknown. Here, we identified the plasmids in the draft genomes of gut bacterial isolates from Chinese and American donors, resulting in 5372 plasmid-like clusters (PLCs), of which, 820 PLCs (comPLCs) were estimated with > 60% completeness genomes and only 155 (18.9%) were classified to known replicon types (n = 37). We observed that 175 comPLCs had a broad host range across distinct bacterial genera, of which, 71 were detected in at least two human populations of Chinese, American, Spanish, and Danish, and 13 were highly prevalent (>10%) in at least one human population. Haplotype analyses of two widespread PLCs demonstrated their spreading and evolutionary trajectory, suggesting frequent and recent exchanges of the BHR plasmids in environments. In conclusion, we obtained a large collection of plasmid sequences in human gut bacteria and demonstrated that a subset of the BHR plasmids can be transmitted globally, thus facilitating extensive HGT (e.g. antibiotic resistance genes) events. This study highlights the potential implications of the plasmids for global human health.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lili Yang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Guoqin Mai
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Zheng Hu
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Haokui Zhou
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Lei Dai
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Ziqing Deng
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
- BGI-Beijing, Beijing 102600, China
| | - Yingfei Ma
- CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
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Saati-Santamaría Z. Global Map of Specialized Metabolites Encoded in Prokaryotic Plasmids. Microbiol Spectr 2023; 11:e0152323. [PMID: 37310275 PMCID: PMC10434180 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.01523-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2023] [Accepted: 05/26/2023] [Indexed: 06/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Plasmids are the main mobile elements responsible for horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in microorganisms. These replicons extend the metabolic spectrum of their host cells by carrying functional genes. However, it is still unknown to what extent plasmids carry biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) related to the production of secondary or specialized metabolites (SMs). Here, we analyzed 9,183 microbial plasmids to unveil their potential to produce SMs, finding a large diversity of cryptic BGCs in a few varieties of prokaryotic host taxa. Some of these plasmids harbored 15 or more BGCs, and many others were exclusively dedicated to mobilizing BGCs. We found an occurrence pattern of BGCs within groups of homologous plasmids shared by a common taxon, mainly in host-associated microbes (e.g., Rhizobiales, Enterobacteriaceae members). Our results add to the knowledge of the ecological functions and potential industrial uses of plasmids and shed light on the dynamics and evolution of SMs in prokaryotes. IMPORTANCE Plasmids are mobile DNA elements that can be shared among microbial cells, and they are useful for bringing to fruition some microbial ecological traits. However, it is not known to what extent plasmids harbor genes related to the production of specialized/secondary metabolites (SMs). In microbes, these metabolites are frequently useful for defense purposes, signaling, etc. In addition, these molecules usually have biotechnological and clinical applications. Here, we analyzed the content, dynamics, and evolution of genes related to the production of SMs in >9,000 microbial plasmids. Our results confirm that some plasmids act as a reservoir of SMs. We also found that some families of biosynthetic gene clusters are exclusively present in some groups of plasmids shared among closely related microbes. Host-associated bacteria (e.g., plant and human microbes) harbor the majority of specialized metabolites encoded in plasmids. These results provide new knowledge about microbial ecological traits and might enable the discovery of novel metabolites.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zaki Saati-Santamaría
- Departamento de Microbiología y Genética, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
- Institute for Agribiotechnology Research (CIALE), Villamayor, Salamanca, Spain
- Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
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Fredriksen S, de Warle S, van Baarlen P, Boekhorst J, Wells JM. Resistome expansion in disease-associated human gut microbiomes. MICROBIOME 2023; 11:166. [PMID: 37507809 PMCID: PMC10386251 DOI: 10.1186/s40168-023-01610-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/21/2022] [Accepted: 06/30/2023] [Indexed: 07/30/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND The resistome, the collection of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in a microbiome, is increasingly recognised as relevant to the development of clinically relevant antibiotic resistance. Many metagenomic studies have reported resistome differences between groups, often in connection with disease and/or antibiotic treatment. However, the consistency of resistome associations with antibiotic- and non-antibiotic-treated diseases has not been established. In this study, we re-analysed human gut microbiome data from 26 case-control studies to assess the link between disease and the resistome. RESULTS The human gut resistome is highly variable between individuals both within and between studies, but may also vary significantly between case and control groups even in the absence of large taxonomic differences. We found that for diseases commonly treated with antibiotics, namely cystic fibrosis and diarrhoea, patient microbiomes had significantly elevated ARG abundances compared to controls. Disease-associated resistome expansion was found even when ARG abundance was high in controls, suggesting ongoing and additive ARG acquisition in disease-associated strains. We also found a trend for increased ARG abundance in cases from some studies on diseases that are not treated with antibiotics, such as colorectal cancer. CONCLUSIONS Diseases commonly treated with antibiotics are associated with expanded gut resistomes, suggesting that historical exposure to antibiotics has exerted considerable selective pressure for ARG acquisition in disease-associated strains. Video Abstract.
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Affiliation(s)
- Simen Fredriksen
- Host-Microbe Interactomics Group, Animal Sciences Department, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
| | - Stef de Warle
- Host-Microbe Interactomics Group, Animal Sciences Department, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Peter van Baarlen
- Host-Microbe Interactomics Group, Animal Sciences Department, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Jos Boekhorst
- Host-Microbe Interactomics Group, Animal Sciences Department, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Jerry M Wells
- Host-Microbe Interactomics Group, Animal Sciences Department, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
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Dewan I, Uecker H. A mathematician's guide to plasmids: an introduction to plasmid biology for modellers. MICROBIOLOGY (READING, ENGLAND) 2023; 169:001362. [PMID: 37505810 PMCID: PMC10433428 DOI: 10.1099/mic.0.001362] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2023] [Accepted: 07/03/2023] [Indexed: 07/29/2023]
Abstract
Plasmids, extrachromosomal DNA molecules commonly found in bacterial and archaeal cells, play an important role in bacterial genetics and evolution. Our understanding of plasmid biology has been furthered greatly by the development of mathematical models, and there are many questions about plasmids that models would be useful in answering. In this review, we present an introductory, yet comprehensive, overview of the biology of plasmids suitable for modellers unfamiliar with plasmids who want to get up to speed and to begin working on plasmid-related models. In addition to reviewing the diversity of plasmids and the genes they carry, their key physiological functions, and interactions between plasmid and host, we also highlight selected plasmid topics that may be of particular interest to modellers and areas where there is a particular need for theoretical development. The world of plasmids holds a great variety of subjects that will interest mathematical biologists, and introducing new modellers to the subject will help to expand the existing body of plasmid theory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ian Dewan
- Research Group Stochastic Evolutionary Dynamics, Department of Theoretical Biology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany
| | - Hildegard Uecker
- Research Group Stochastic Evolutionary Dynamics, Department of Theoretical Biology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany
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Fenibo EO, Selvarajan R, Abia ALK, Matambo T. Medium-chain alkane biodegradation and its link to some unifying attributes of alkB genes diversity. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2023; 877:162951. [PMID: 36948313 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162951] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2022] [Revised: 03/14/2023] [Accepted: 03/15/2023] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
Hydrocarbon footprints in the environment, via biosynthesis, natural seepage, anthropogenic activities and accidents, affect the ecosystem and induce a shift in the healthy biogeochemical equilibrium that drives needed ecological services. In addition, these imbalances cause human diseases and reduce animal and microorganism diversity. Microbial bioremediation, which capitalizes on functional genes, is a sustainable mitigation option for cleaning hydrocarbon-impacted environments. This review focuses on the bacterial alkB functional gene, which codes for a non-heme di‑iron monooxygenase (AlkB) with a di‑iron active site that catalyzes C8-C16 medium-chain alkane metabolism. These enzymes are ubiquitous and share common attributes such as being controlled by global transcriptional regulators, being a component of most super hydrocarbon degraders, and their distributions linked to horizontal gene transfer (HGT) events. The phylogenetic approach used in the HGT detection suggests that AlkB tree topology clusters bacteria functionally and that a preferential gradient dictates gene distribution. The alkB gene also acts as a biomarker for bioremediation, although it is found in pristine environments and absent in some hydrocarbon degraders. For instance, a quantitative molecular method has failed to link alkB copy number to contamination concentration levels. This limitation may be due to AlkB homologues, which have other functions besides n-alkane assimilation. Thus, this review, which focuses on Pseudomonas putida GPo1 alkB, shows that AlkB proteins are diverse but have some unifying trends around hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria; it is erroneous to rely on alkB detection alone as a monitoring parameter for hydrocarbon degradation, alkB gene distribution are preferentially distributed among bacteria, and the plausible explanation for AlkB affiliation to broad-spectrum metabolism of hydrocarbons in super-degraders hitherto reported. Overall, this review provides a broad perspective of the ecology of alkB-carrying bacteria and their directed biodegradation pathways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emmanuel Oliver Fenibo
- World Bank Africa Centre of Excellence, Centre for Oilfield Chemical Research, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt 500272, Nigeria
| | - Ramganesh Selvarajan
- Laboratory of Extraterrestrial Ocean Systems (LEOS), Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sanya, China; Department of Environmental Science, University of South Africa, Florida Campus, 1710, South Africa
| | - Akebe Luther King Abia
- Department of Environmental Science, University of South Africa, Florida Campus, 1710, South Africa; Environmental Research Foundation, Westville 3630, South Africa
| | - Tonderayi Matambo
- Institute for the Development of Energy for African Sustainability, University of South Africa, Roodepoort 1709, South Africa.
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Fujihara H, Hirose J, Suenaga H. Evolution of genetic architecture and gene regulation in biphenyl/PCB-degrading bacteria. Front Microbiol 2023; 14:1168246. [PMID: 37350784 PMCID: PMC10282184 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1168246] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2023] [Accepted: 05/16/2023] [Indexed: 06/24/2023] Open
Abstract
A variety of bacteria in the environment can utilize xenobiotic compounds as a source of carbon and energy. The bacterial strains degrading xenobiotics are suitable models to investigate the adaptation and evolutionary processes of bacteria because they appear to have emerged relatively soon after the release of these compounds into the natural environment. Analyses of bacterial genome sequences indicate that horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the most important contributor to the bacterial evolution of genetic architecture. Further, host bacteria that can use energy effectively by controlling the expression of organized gene clusters involved in xenobiotic degradation will have a survival advantage in harsh xenobiotic-rich environments. In this review, we summarize the current understanding of evolutionary mechanisms operative in bacteria, with a focus on biphenyl/PCB-degrading bacteria. We then discuss metagenomic approaches that are useful for such investigation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hidehiko Fujihara
- Department of Food and Fermentation Sciences, Faculty of Food and Nutrition Sciences, Beppu University, Beppu, Japan
| | - Jun Hirose
- Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, University of Miyazaki, Miyazaki, Japan
| | - Hikaru Suenaga
- Cellular and Molecular Biotechnology Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tokyo, Japan
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Harrison L, Zhao S, Li C, McDermott PF, Tyson GH, Strain E. Lociq provides a loci-seeking approach for enhanced plasmid subtyping and structural characterization. Commun Biol 2023; 6:595. [PMID: 37268717 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-04981-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2023] [Accepted: 05/25/2023] [Indexed: 06/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) monitoring for public health is relying more on whole genome sequencing to characterize and compare resistant strains. This requires new approaches to describe and track AMR that take full advantage of the detailed data provided by genomic technologies. The plasmid-mediated transfer of AMR genes is a primary concern for AMR monitoring because plasmid rearrangement events can integrate new AMR genes into the plasmid backbone or promote hybridization of multiple plasmids. To better monitor plasmid evolution and dissemination, we developed the Lociq subtyping method to classify plasmids by variations in the sequence and arrangement of core plasmid genetic elements. Subtyping with Lociq provides an alpha-numeric nomenclature that can be used to denominate plasmid population diversity and characterize the relevant features of individual plasmids. Here we demonstrate how Lociq generates typing schema to track and characterize the origin, evolution and epidemiology of multidrug resistant plasmids.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucas Harrison
- Center for Veterinary Medicine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Laurel, MD, USA.
| | - Shaohua Zhao
- Center for Veterinary Medicine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Laurel, MD, USA
| | - Cong Li
- Center for Veterinary Medicine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Laurel, MD, USA
| | - Patrick F McDermott
- Center for Veterinary Medicine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Laurel, MD, USA
| | - Gregory H Tyson
- Center for Veterinary Medicine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Laurel, MD, USA
| | - Errol Strain
- Center for Veterinary Medicine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Laurel, MD, USA
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