The Shared Antibiotic Resistome of Soil Bacteria and Human Pathogens

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 337; no. 6098; pp. 1107 - 1111
• Main Authors: Forsberg, Kevin J., Reyes, Alejandro, Wang, Bin, Selleck, Elizabeth M., Sommer, Morten O. A., Dantas, Gautam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science 31-08-2012; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Acid soils; Agrology; Aminoglycosides - pharmacology; Anti-Bacterial Agents - pharmacology; Antibiotic resistance; Antibiotics; Bacteria - drug effects; Bacteria - genetics; Bacteria - pathogenicity; Bacteriology; Base Sequence; beta-Lactams - pharmacology; Biological and medical sciences; Drug resistance; Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial - genetics; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gene sequencing; Genes; Genetics; High-Throughput Screening Assays; Human; Humans; Metagenome - drug effects; Metagenome - genetics; Metagenomics; Microbiology; Molecular Sequence Data; Nucleotides; Open reading frames; Organisms; Pathogens; Proteobacteria; Soil bacteria; Soil Microbiology; Soil microorganisms; Sulfonamides - pharmacology; Tetracyclines - pharmacology; Human; Resistance; Soils; Antibiotic; Gene; Pathogen strain; Bacteria
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1220761

Soil microbiota represent one of the ancient evolutionary origins of antibiotic resistance and have been proposed as a reservoir of resistance genes available for exchange with clinical pathogens. Using a high-throughput functional metagenomic approach in conjunction with a pipeline for the de novo assembly of short-read sequence data from functional selections (termed PARFuMS), we provide evidence for recent exchange of antibiotic resistance genes between environmental bacteria and clinical pathogens. We describe multidrug-resistant soil bacteria containing resistance cassettes against five classes of antibiotics (β-lactams, aminoglycosides, amphenicols, sulfonamides, and tetracyclines) that have perfect nucleotide identity to genes from diverse human pathogens. This identity encompasses noncoding regions as well as multiple mobilization sequences, offering not only evidence of lateral exchange but also a mechanism by which antibiotic resistance disseminates.