Date:Posted By:Category:AMR Digest

AMR MARCH, 2023

prepared by Ulrike Löber

March digest features a review of novel methods to quantifying the physical linkage between specific antimicrobial resistance genes and mobile genetic elements, how traveling affects AMR, and more.

We are looking for speakers for our EMBARK webinars in 2023. If you want to share your groundbreaking research on antimicrobial resistance, please get in touch with us!

General

Latent antibiotic resistance genes are abundant, diverse, and mobile in human, animal, and environmental microbiomes – Juan Salvador Inda-Díaz, Marcos Parras-Moltó, Anna Johnning, Johan Bengtsson-Palme & Erik Kristiansson – Microbiome

Prevalence of Plasmid-Associated Tetracycline Resistance Genes in Multidrug-Resistant Escherichia coli Strains Isolated from Environmental, Animal and Human Samples in Panama – I. E. Ramírez-Bayard – Antibiotics

Perspective: Challenges in Forecasting Antimicrobial Resistance – Sen Pei – Emerging Infectious Diseases

Determination and quantification of microbial communities and antimicrobial resistance on food through host DNA-depleted metagenomics – Samuel J. Bloomfield – Food Microbiology

Editorial: Antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial alternatives – Marwan Osman – Frontiers in Medicine

Review: Reframing antimicrobial resistance as a continuous spectrum of manifestations – Sarah M Schrader – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Intermittent antibiotic treatment of bacterial biofilms favors the rapid evolution of resistance – Masaru Usui – Communications Biology

Heavy Metal Pollution Impacts Soil Bacterial Community Structure and Antimicrobial Resistance at the Birmingham 35th Avenue Superfund Site – Anuradha Goswami – Microbiology Spectrum

Horizontal gene transfer
Review: How do interactions between mobile genetic elements affect horizontal gene transfer? – Tanya Horne – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Antimicrobial peptides

Development of novel broad-spectrum antimicrobial lipopeptides derived from plantaricin NC8 β – Emanuel Wiman – Scientific Reports

Global health

*Preprint: Within-host density and duration of colonization of multidrug-resistant Enterobacterales acquired during travel to the tropics – Olivier Cotto, Laurence Armand-Lefèvre, Sophie Matheron, Etienne Ruppé, François Blanquart the VOYAG-R study group – bioRxiv

Review: Reservoirs of antimicrobial resistance in the context of One Health – Milena Despotovic – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Alterations in faecal microbiome and resistome in Chinese international travellers: a metagenomic analysis – Man Kit Cheung – Journal of Travel Medicine

Human-associated AMR

Functional metagenomic libraries generated from anthropogenically impacted environments reveal importance of metabolic genes in biocide and antibiotic resistance – Aimee K. Murray – Current Research in Microbial Sciences

Population-level impacts of antibiotic usage on the human gut microbiome – Kihyun Lee – Nature Communications

Genomic diversity of non-diarrheagenic fecal Escherichia coli from children in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia and their relatedness to diarrheagenic E. coli – Tracy H. Hazen – Nature Communications

Integrative omics identifies conserved and pathogen-specific responses of sepsis-causing bacteria – Andre Mu – Nature Communications

Development of the oral resistome during the first decade of life – Smitha Sukumar – Nature Communications

Mutations Related to Antibiotics Resistance in Helicobacter pylori Clinical Isolates from Bangladesh – Kartika Afrida Fauzia – Antibiotics

Hospital

Extended-Spectrum β-Lactamase Genes Traverse the Escherichia coli Populations of Intensive Care Unit Patients, Staff, and Environment – Robert A. Moran – Microbiology Spectrum

Rectal carriage of extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriales among neonates admitted into a special care baby unit, southwest Nigeria – Temitope O Obadare – Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

Virulence analysis and antibiotic resistance of Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates from hospitalised patients in Poland – Barbara Kot – Scientific Reports

Animal

Plasmid-Mediated Colistin Resistance Genes mcr-1 and mcr-4 in Multidrug-Resistant Escherichia coli Strains Isolated from a Healthy Pig in Portugal – Ana Amaro – Microbial Drug Resistance

Phenotypic and genotypic characterization of antibiotic resistance of Salmonella Heidelberg in the south of Brazil – Luana Sielski Galvão Soares – International Journal of Food Microbiology

Trophic level and proteobacteria abundance drive antibiotic resistance levels in fish from coastal New England – Benjamin J. Korry – Animal Microbiome

Longitudinal study of the short- and long-term effects of hospitalisation and oral trimethoprim-sulfadiazine administration on the equine faecal microbiome and resistome – Mathijs J. P. Theelen – Microbiome

In vitro digestion of ESC-resistant Escherichia coli from poultry meat and evaluation of human health risk – May Linn Buberg – Frontiers in Microbiology

Identification and characterization of the causative agents of Focal Ulcerative Dermatitis in commercial laying hens – Diana I. Ayala – Frontiers in Veterinary Science

Water

Microbiome, resistome and mobilome of chlorine-free drinking water treatment systems – David Calderón-Franco – Water Research

Review: Sewage surveillance of antibiotic resistance holds both opportunities and challenges – D. G. Joakim Larsson – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Preprint: Antibiotic Resistance Gene Variant Sequencing is Necessary to Reveal the Complex Dynamics of Immigration from Sewers to Activated Sludge – Claire Gibson – bioRxiv

Evidence for wastewaters as environments where mobile antibiotic resistance genes emerge – Fanny Berglund – Communications Biology

Viruses and phages

The persistence and stabilization of auxiliary genes in the human skin virome – Ema H. Graham – Virology Journal

Altered infective competence of the human gut microbiome in COVID-19 – Laura de Nies – Microbiome

Review: Antimicrobial resistance in patients with COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis – Bradley J Langford – The Lancet Microbe

Characterization of antibiotic resistomes by reprogrammed bacteriophage-enabled functional metagenomics in clinical strains – Gábor Apjok – Nature Microbiology

Bioinformatics

AMR for R package v2.0

Prediction of vancomycin initial dosage using artificial intelligence models applying ensemble strategy – Wen-Hsien Ho – BMC Bioinformatics

Protocols

Nanopore Sequencing Discloses Compositional Quality of Commercial Probiotic Feed Supplements – Worarat Kruasuwan – Scientific Reports

*Quantification of the mobility potential of antibiotic resistance genes through multiplexed ddPCR linkage analysis – Magali de la Cruz Barron, David Kneis, Alan Xavier Elena, Kenyum Bagra, Thomas U Berendonk, Uli Klümper – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

News and Views

European Science-Media Hub – Interview with Prof. Francesco Imperi on new strategies to fight antimicrobial resistance

Antibiotic Resistance: A mobile target – Carolina Oliveira de Santana – eLife

Podcasts

The AMR Studio Episode 46 – Alison Prendiville & service design. Antimicrobials in food animals. Bacteriuria & ICU stays.

EDITORS IN CONVERSATION Episode 63 – Antimicrobial Resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Webinars

WHO costing & budgeting tool for national action plans on AMR – A review and country experiences

Date:Posted By:Category:AMR Digest

AMR February, 2023

prepared by Svetlana Ugarcina Perovic

This very first 2023 AMR digest features global AMR use trends in food-producing animals, antibiotic resistance in the commensal human gut microbiota, functional metagenomics in clinical strains, and more!


Antibiotic development

Deep mutational scanning of essential bacterial proteins can guide antibiotic development – Liselot Dewachter – Nature Communications

Global resistome

Global trends in antimicrobial use in food-producing animals: 2020 to 2030 – Ranya Mulchandani – Plos Global Public Health
*The global usage of veterinary antimicrobials in 2020 at 99,502 tonnes, and -on current trends- project an 8% increase by 2030 (~107,500 tonnes). In 2020, China, Brazil, India, and United States remain in the top 5 countries for absolute antimicrobial use in tonnes. There is still no publicly available country-level reports of veterinary antimicrobial use in the majority of countries of the world!

Human gut

Antibiotic resistance in the commensal human gut microbiota – Lisa E Lamberte, Willem van Schaik – Current Opinion in Microbiology

Longitudinal fluctuations of common antimicrobial resistance genes in the gut microbiomes of healthy Dutch individuals – Jakob J. Malin – International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents

Vaginal microbiome

Microdiversity of the Vaginal Microbiome is Associated with Preterm Birth – Jingqiu Liao – bioRxiv

Urinary tract

Phenotypic and genomic characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates recovered from catheter-associated urinary tract infections in an Egyptian hospital – Mohamed Eladawy – bioRxiv

Wastewater resistome

A proposed framework for the identification of indicator genes for monitoring antibiotic resistance in wastewater: Insights from metagenomic sequencing – Mehedi Hasan Tarek, Emily Garner – Science of The Total Environment
*Based on public data from 191 wastewater samples originating from 64 countries, this framework revealed 56 candidate indicator ARGs distributed across four modules of strongly correlated ARGs, with one ARG from each module (oqxA, ermB, sul1, and mexE) proposed as a minimally redundant monitoring target.

Metagenomic Insight into Microbiome and Antibiotic Resistance Genes of High Clinical Concern in Urban and Rural Hospital Wastewater of Northern India Origin: a Major Reservoir of Antimicrobial Resistance – Absar Talat – Microbiology Spectrum

Metagenomic Analysis of the Abundance and Composition of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Hospital Wastewater in Benin, Burkina Faso, and Finland – Melina A. Markkanen – mSphere

Hospital and urban wastewaters shape the structure and active resistome of environmental biofilms – Elena Buelow – bioRxiv

The @UK_WIR CIP3 AMR in wastewater report is now available online here

Evolution

Evolutionary Responses to Acquiring a Multidrug Resistance Plasmid Are Dominated by Metabolic Functions across Diverse Escherichia coli Lineages – Laura Carrilero – mSystems

Animals

Comparative metagenomics reveals poultry and swine farming are hotspots for multidrug and tetracycline resistance – Victoria Osorio – Environmental Pollution

Deciphering risks of resistomes and pathogens in intensive laying hen production chain – Yixiao Zhu – Science of The Total Environments

Expanded catalogue of metagenome-assembled genomes reveals resistome characteristics and athletic performance-associated microbes in horse – Cunyuan Li – Microbiome

Techniques

Characterization of antibiotic resistomes by reprogrammed bacteriophage-enabled functional metagenomics in clinical strains – Gábor Apjok – Nature Microbiology
*A functional metagenomics pipeline called Reprogrammed Bacteriophage Particle Assisted Multi-species Functional Metagenomics (DEEPMINE). The authors use of T7 bacteriophage with exchanged tail fibres and targeted mutagenesis to expand phage host-specificity and efficiency for functional metagenomics. By screening for ARGs in soil and gut microbiomes and clinical genomes against 13 antibiotics, the authors demonstrate that this approach substantially expands the list of identified ARGs.

An optogenetic toolkit for light-inducible antibiotic resistance – Michael B. Sheets – Nature Communications

Bioinformatics

A global Corynebacterium diphtheriae genomic framework sheds light on current diphtheria reemergence – Melanie Hennart – bioRxiv
*The authors developed the bioinformatics pipeline DIPHTOSCAN (available at https://gitlab.pasteur.fr/BEBP/diphtoscan) to extract from genomes, medically relevant features including the toxin gene presence and disruption.

Comparison of long- and short-read metagenomic assembly for low-abundance species and resistance genes – Sosie Yorki – Briefings in Bioinformatics

Education & Courses

MicroMundo: experimental project fostering contribution to knowledge on antimicrobial resistance in secondary school – Beatriz Robredo – FEMS Microbiology Letters

Course: Antibiotic Resistance – The Silent Tsunami by ReAct

Date:Posted By:Category:AMR Digest

AMR December, 2022

prepared by Anna Abramova

This AMR digest features overview of sewage resistomes from most countries on Earth and importance of sewage surveillance of antibiotic resistance, latest news on inner secrets of Asgard archaea and microbiomes of Galapagos marine iguanas… and lots of Santas hats here and there. Happy #AMR reading!

EMBARK team wishes you happy holidays!

Global

Genomic analysis of sewage from 101 countries reveals global landscape of antimicrobial resistance – Patrick Munk – Nature Communications
* The authors analyzed 757 sewage samples from 243 cities in 101 countries. This study provides a comprehensive sewage-based overview of global ARG abundance, diversity, and genomic backgrounds from most countries on Earth.

Review: Sewage surveillance of antibiotic resistance holds both opportunities and challenges – Joakim Larsson – Nature Reviews Microbiology
* In this brief commentary, the authors discuss recent European Union-directive that requests that member states monitor antibiotic resistance at all sewage treatment plants serving >100,000.

Review: Bacterial survivors: evaluating the mechanisms of antibiotic persistence – Xiaoyi Shi and Ashraf Zarkan – Microbiology

Defining the Benefits of Antibiotic Resistance in Commensals and the Scope for Resistance Optimization – Kristofer Wollein Waldetoft – Microbial Ecology
* Antibiotic resistance is commonly viewed as universally costly, regardless of which bacterial cells express resistance. In this paper, the authors derive an opposing logic, where resistance in commensal bacteria can lead to reductions in pathogen density and improved outcomes on both the patient and public health scales (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Potential costs and benefits of antibiotic resistance in commensal organisms.

Review: The role of bacterial transport systems in the removal of host antimicrobial peptides in Gram-negative bacteria – Jessica M A Blair – FEMS Microbiology Reviews

Mysterious Asgard archaea microbes reveal their inner secrets – Jan Löwe – Nature News and Views
* Asgard archaeal cells have been grown successfully in the laboratory and their internal architecture offers clues to the early evolution of eukaryotic cells. Have a look inside a proposed relative of our cellular ancestors!

Clinical

Extended-spectrum β-lactamase genes traverse the Escherichia coli populations of ICU patients, staff and environment – Robert A. Moran – bioRxiv

A Clinical Study Provides the First Direct Evidence That Interindividual Variations in Fecal β-Lactamase Activity Affect the Gut Mycobiota Dynamics in Response to β-Lactam Antibiotics – Margot Delavy – Human Microbiome

Meta-analysis of sputum microbiome studies identifies airway disease-specific taxonomic and functional signatures – Abhirupa Ghosh and Sudipto Saha – Journal of Medical Microbiology

Human microbiome

Human microbiota drives hospital-associated antimicrobial resistance dissemination in the urban environment and mirrors patient case rates – Cecilia Salazar – Microbiome

Characterization and Spatial Mapping of the Human Gut Metasecretome – Florencia Velez-Cortes and Harris Wang – Computational Biology

Animal

Characterization of the gut microbiome and resistome of Galapagos marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) from uninhabited islands – Karla Vasco – BMC Animal Microbiome
* This study shows a diverse resistome composition in the Galapagos marine iguanas from remote islands raising concerns about the dispersion of microbial-resistant threats in pristine areas.

Guts within guts: the microbiome of the intestinal helminth parasite Ascaris suum is derived but distinct from its host – Ankur Midha, Víctor Hugo Jarquín-Díaz, Friederike Ebner, Ulrike Löber, Rima Hayani, Arkadi Kundik, Alessio Cardilli, Emanuel Heitlinger, Sofia Kirke Forslund & Susanne Hartmann – Microbiome
* Intestinal helminths are extremely prevalent among humans and animals, and live in intimate contact with the host gut microbiota and harbor bacteria within their own intestines. This study shows that a nematode infection reduces the microbiome diversity of the host gut, and that the nematode gut represents a selective bacterial niche harboring bacteria that are derived but distinct from the host gut.

Gut microbiota of homing pigeons shows summer–winter variation under constant diet indicating a substantial effect of temperature – Maurine W. Dietz – Animal Microbiome

The skin microbiota of the axolotl Ambystoma altamirani is highly influenced by metamorphosis and seasonality but not by pathogen infection – Emanuel Martínez-Ugalde – Animal Microbiome

Phages

Biophysical basis of phage liquid crystalline droplet-mediated antibiotic tolerance in pathogenic bacteria – Jan Böhning – bioRxiv
* In this work the authors investigate how phage liquid crystalline droplets in P. aeruginosa biofilms protect bacteria from antibiotics (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Schematic depicting biophysical nature of phage liquid crystalline droplet-mediated antibiotic tolerance of bacteria.

Water

Microbiome, resistome and mobilome of chlorine-free drinking water treatment systems – David Calderón-Franco – bioRxiv

The antibiotic resistance and risk heterogeneity between urban and rural rivers in a pharmaceutical industry dominated city in China: The importance of social-economic factors – Lulu Zhang – Science of The Total Environment

Genome-resolved insight into the reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes in aquatic microbial community – Zahra Goodarzi – Scientific Reports
* This study shows the distribution of ARGs in the Caspian Sea ecosystem (Figure 3). To this end, the authors performed genome-resolved metagenomic analyses of deeply sequenced depth profile metagenomes of the Caspian Sea and applied Hidden Markov models. They further investigated how ecological strategies of resistance bacteria affect the ARGs they contain. Comparative analysis revealed that Acidimicrobiia and Actinobacteria characterized by streamlined genomes modify the antibiotic target via mutation to develop antibiotic resistance rather than carrying extra resistance genes.

Figure 3 Antibiotic resistance gene profile of the Caspian Sea Bacteria

Soil

Early season soil microbiome best predicts wheat grain quality – Numan Ibne Asad – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Techniques

Validation and Application of Long-Read Whole-Genome Sequencing for Antimicrobial Resistance Gene Detection and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing – Thomas Weinmaier – Computational Biology

Bioinformatics

Ten simple rules for investigating (meta)genomic data from environmental ecosystems – Paton Vuong – PLoS Computational Biology

Events, Podcasts and more

10th Congress of European Microbiologists: 9 – 13 July 2023, Hamburg, Germany

Remember to wash your hands and stay healthy! ☺️

Date:Posted By:Category:AMR Digest

AMR November, 2022

prepared by Faina Tskhay

The EMBARK team is happy and proud to announce that Dr Johan Bengtsson-Palme, coordinator of the EMBARK project, became a laureate of the Einhorn SIGHT award. Congratulations!

The November AMR Digest delivers some fresh and crisp publications from the world of antibiotic resistance. This time we collected publications featuring the AMR evolution, AMR in water and soil, advances of metagenomics in tracking AMR and much more! Enjoy your reading!

Global

Special issue of Environmental Science and Technology Journal – AMR in the Environment: Informing Policy and Practice to Prevent the Spread

The synthesis report “Routes and reservoirs of AMR-determinants & One Health AMR-surveillance” of the Swiss National Research Program 72 “Antimicrobial Resistance”
This report summarizes the research of 18 projects in the field of antibiotic resistance over a 5-year period. Based on the findings and observations, the authors suggest key recommendations for action to restrict the spread of AMR.

Reviews

Molecular mechanisms of antibiotic resistance revisited – Elizabeth M. Darby – Natural Reviews Microbiology
In this article, the authors provide an overview of molecular mechanisms and strategies that bacteria apply to develop resistance to antimicrobials. They give insights into the role of efflux systems in decreased antibiotic susceptibility and their synergetic interaction with other resistance mechanisms. Understanding of molecular mechanisms is essential to overcome antimicrobial resistance and can be used, for example, for developing so-called antibiotic resistance breakers (ARBs) – compounds that can restore antibiotic activity by disrupting or inhibiting a specific resistance mechanism.

Does Environmental Exposure to Pharmaceutical and Personal Care Product Residues Result in the Selection of Antimicrobial-Resistant Microorganisms, and is this Important in Terms of Human Health Outcomes? – Isobel C. Stanton, Holly J. Tipper, Kevin Chau, Uli Klümper, Jessica Subirats, Aimee K. Murray – Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
This review comprehensively compiles laboratory studies, and field based research evidence regarding the effects of pharmaceutical and personal care products on selection and horizontal gene transfer of antimicrobial resistance in multiple environments. It summarizes these studies and points out under which scenarios the promotion of AMR by PPCPs in the environment is and will be relevant to human health.

Clinical

Nearly Complete Genome Sequence of Raoultella ornithinolytica Strain MQB_Silv_108, Carrying an Uncommon Extended-Spectrum-β-Lactamase-like blaBEL Gene – Marcos Quintela-Baluja – Microbiology Resource Announcements

Report and Comparative Genomics of an NDM-5-Producing Escherichia coli in a Portuguese Hospital: Complex Class 1 Integrons as Important Players in blaNDM Spread – Rafael D. S. Tavares – Microorganisms

Gut microbiota

Noise reduction strategies in metagenomic chromosome confirmation capture to link antibiotic resistance genes to microbial hosts – Gregory E. McCallum – bioRxiv

Enterotoxin tilimycin from gut-resident Klebsiella promotes mutational evolution and antibiotic resistance in mice – Sabine Kienesberger – Nature Microbiology

Sharing Antimicrobial Resistance Genes between Humans and Food Animals – Huiluo Cao – mSystems

Gut microbiome dysbiosis in antibiotic-treated COVID-19 patients is associated with microbial translocation and bacteremia – Lucie Bernard-Raichon – Nature Communications

Characterization of antibiotic-resistance traits in Akkermansia muciniphila strains of human origin – Rossella Filardi – Scientific Reports

AMR evolution

Within-patient evolution of plasmid-mediated antimicrobial resistance – Javier DelaFuente – Nature Ecology and Evolution
This five-year study aimed at tracking AMR evolution in vivo in patients. By analyzing 224 poxA-48-carrying Enterobacteria isolated from 9000 patients, DelaFuente et al. were able to identify 35 variants of a poxA-48 plasmid. They monitored 121 patients for a potential case of within-patient AMR evolution and identified three instances in which the same bacterial host carried different plasmid variants over the treatment period. The authors compared plasmid fitness, susceptibility to antibiotics, plasmid copy number and HGT rates of the new plasmids and ancestral plasmids. According to their findings, the authors concluded that within-patient plasmid-mediated AMR requires an interplay between resistance levels and bacterial fitness.

Plasmid evolution in the clinic – Rosanna C. T. Wright & Michael A. Brockhurst – Nature Ecology and Evolution

Exposure to environmental stress decreases the resistance of river microbial communities towards invasion by antimicrobial-resistant bacteria – Kenyum Bagra, Xavier Bellanger, Christophe Merlin, Gargi Singh, Thomas Ulrich Berendonk, Uli Klümper – bioRxiv
In this preprint the authors utilize artificial river flume systems to explore the invasion dynamics of a model resistant strain (E. coli) into river microbial communities in the presence and absence of a co-introduced environmental stressor. Despite an initially successful introduction of E. coli into all the biofilms, independent of the imposed stress, over time the invader perished in absence of stress. However, under stress conditions the invading strain successfully established and proliferated in the biofilms. Noteworthy, the increased establishment success of the invader coincided with a loss in microbial community diversity under stress conditions, likely due to additional niche space becoming available for the invader.

Mobile genetic elements in Acinetobacter antibiotic-resistance acquisition and dissemination – Hannah R. Noel – Annals of the New York Academy of Science

Electrochemical disinfection may increase the spread of antibiotic resistance genes by promoting conjugal plasmid transfer – Hua Li – Science of The Total Environment

IncP-type plasmids carrying genes for antibiotic resistance or for aromatic compound degradation are prevalent in sequenced Aromatoleum and Thauera strains – Hao-Yu Lo – Environmental Microbiology

Reductive Stress Boosts the Horizontal Transfer of Plasmid-Borne Antibiotic Resistance Genes: The Neglected Side of the Intracellular Redox Spectrum – Haining Huang – Environmental Science & Technology

Novel Plasmid Carrying Mobile Colistin Resistance Gene mcr-4.3 and Mercury Resistance Genes in Shewanella baltica: Insights into Mobilization of mcr-4.3 in Shewanella Species – Nachiket P. Marathe – Microbiology Spectrum

Defense systems are pervasive across chromosomally integrated mobile genetic elements and are inversely correlated to virulence and antimicrobial resistance – João Botelho – bioRxiv

Animals

Concordance between Antimicrobial Resistance Phenotype and Genotype of Staphylococcus pseudintermedius from Healthy Dogs – Joaquim Viñes – Antibiotics

Genomic Insights into the Mobilome and Resistome of Sentinel Microorganisms Originating from Farms of Two Different Swine Production System – Oscar Mencía-Ares – Microbiology Spectrum

More than an anthropogenic phenomenon: Antimicrobial resistance in ungulates from natural and agricultural environments – Lee J. Pinnell – Science of the Total Environment

Viruses and phages

Quantification and fate of plasmid-specific bacteriophages in wastewater: Beyond the F-coliphages – Zhiming He – Water Research

Water

Dissemination of antibiotic resistance in antibiotic-free recirculating aquaculture systems – Ioannis Kampouris, Uli Klümper, Lena Kramer, Henning Sorum, Helmut Wedekind, Thomas U. Berendonk – Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances

Explaining the resistomes in a megacity’s water supply catchment: Roles of microbial assembly-dominant taxa, niched environments and pathogenic bacteria – Dong Wu – Water Research

The global groundwater resistome: core ARGs and their dynamics – an in silico re-analysis of publicly available groundwater metagenomes – Ioannis D. Kampouris, Thomas U. Berendonk, Johan Bengtsson-Palme, Uli Klümper – bioRxiv

Wastewater Surveillance of Antibiotic-Resistant bacterial pathogens: a Systematic Review – Ananda Tiwari – Frontiers in Microbiology

Nanopore-based long-read metagenomics uncover the resistome intrusion by antibiotic-resistant bacteria from treated wastewater in receiving water body – Ziqi Wu – Water Research

Mobilome-driven segregation of the resistome in biological wastewater treatment – Laura de Nies – eLife

Soil

Plants select antibiotic resistome in rhizosphere in early stage – Yitian Yua – Science of the Total Environment

Global biogeography and projection of soil antibiotic resistance genes – Dongsheng Zheng – Science Advances

Metagenomics, Bioinformatics

Functional and Sequence-Specific Screening Protocols for the Detection of Novel Antimicrobial Resistance Genes in Metagenomic DNA – Supathep Tansirichaiya – Methods in Molecular Biology

In Silico Characterization of blaNDM-Harboring Conjugative Plasmids in Acinetobacter Species – Biao Tang – Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

Target-enriched long-read sequencing (TELSeq) contextualizes antimicrobial resistance genes in metagenomes – Ilya B. Slizovskiy – Microbiome

Multiomics Characterization of the Canada Goose Fecal Microbiome Reveals Selective Efficacy of Simulated Metagenomes – Joshua C. Gil, Sarah M. Hird – Microbiology Spectrum

MEGARes and AMR++, v3.0: an updated comprehensive database of antimicrobial resistance determinants and an improved software pipeline for classification using high-throughput sequencing – Nathalie Bonin – Nucleic Acids Research

Three Distinct Annotation Platforms Differ in Detection of Antimicrobial Resistance Genes in Long-Read, Short-Read, and Hybrid Sequences Derived from Total Genomic DNA or from Purified Plasmid DNA – Grazieli Maboni – Antibiotics

Webinars

“Antimicrobial Resistance in the Environment” – UNFAO, UNEP, WHO, WOAH – Webinar Series.

Date:Posted By:Category:AMR Digest

AMR OCTOBER, 2022

prepared by Marcus Wenne

In September, the EMBARK team got together to:
1. discuss current and future AMR research efforts and
2. have fun!!

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere every day is becoming darker and colder when we are steadily approaching winter. It is therefore extra important to illuminate your mind with interesting research and get that warm feeling in your body when reading a well written and structured paper. This is hopefully the feeling you will get when reading our October AMR digest. It touches the topics of evolution, the release of new databases, biofilms, wastewater and so much more. If you are from the Southern Hemisphere, you are of course equally welcome to take part of this interesting collection of papers!

Wastewater
Predicting selection for antimicrobial resistance in UK wastewater and aquatic environments: Ciprofloxacin poses a significant risk – April Hayes – Environment International

Microbiome and resistome dynamics along a sewage-effluent-reservoir continuum underline the role of natural attenuation in effluent receiving reservoirs – Inês Leão, Leron Khalifa, Nicolas Gallois, Ivone Vaz-Moreira, Uli Klümper, Daniel Youdkes, Shaked Palmony, Lotan Dagai, Thomas U. Berendonk, Christophe Merlin, Célia M. Manaia, Eddie Cytryn – bioRxiv

New methods, tools or approaches
Evaluation of FEAST for metagenomics-based source tracking of antibiotic resistance genes – Jinping Chen – Journal of Hazardous Materials

Determination and quantification of microbial communities and antimicrobial resistance on food through host DNA-depleted metagenomics – Samuel J Bloomfield – Food Microbiology

Quantification of the mobility potential of antibiotic resistance genes through multiplexed ddPCR linkage analysis – Magali de la Cruz Barron, David Kneis, Alan Xavier Elena, Kenyum Bagra, Thomas U. Berendonk, Uli Klümper – bioRxiv

Biofilm
Metagenomic insights into taxonomic, functional diversity and inhibitors of microbial biofilms – Madangchanok Imchen – Microbiological Research

Biofilm antimicrobial susceptibility through an experimental evolutionary lens – Tom Coenye – Biofilms and Microbes

Databases & resources

*ResFinderFG v2.0: a database of antibiotic resistance genes obtained by functional metagenomics – Rémi Gschwind – bioRxiv
A bioinformatic analysis is not better than the database and tools you base it on. Here Rémi
Gschwind et al. describes a new and updated version of ResFinderFG, version 2.0. According
to the authors most genes in antibiotic resistance gene databases mostly originate from
culturable and pathogenic bacteria. ResfinderFG 2.0 is instead a database based on a
literature search on studies identifying resistance genes using functional metagenomics.
This means that there is a reduced bias in the ResFinderFG v.2.0 database towards
culturable pathogens.


Ab-AMR: A Comprehensive Repository of Acinetobacter baumannii to Understand the Molecular Landscape of Antimicrobial Resistance – Tina Sharma – bioRxiv

CARD 2023: expanded curation, support for machine learning, and resistome prediction at the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database – Brian P Alcock – Nucleic Acids Research

*A curated data resource of 214K metagenomes for characterization of the global antimicrobial resistome – Hannah-Marie Martiny – PLOS BIOLOGY
Large scale metagenomic screenings of the worlds entire catalogue of metagenomic data
could potentially reveal interesting global and local patterns of antibiotic resistance.
Undertaking such a task is however way to computer intensive for most research groups to
undertake. Luckily, Hannah-Marie Martiny et al. have already undertaken this task. In this
paper they present a publicly available resource of antibiotic resistance gene abundance
based on 442 Tbp of sequencing reads from 214,095 metagenomic samples from the
European Nucleotide Archive.

Fig 4. Composition of reads assigned to ARGs from different resistance classes grouped by sampling origin.

Reviews

Time for Some Group Therapy: Update on Identification, Antimicrobial Resistance, Taxonomy, and Clinical Significance of the Bacteroides fragilis Group – Sophonie Jean – Journal of Clinical Microbiology

Tackling AMR from a multidisciplinary perspective: a primer from education and psychology – Alicia Calvo‑Villamañán – International Microbiology

Machine learning in predicting antimicrobial resistance: a systematic review and meta-analysis – Rui Tang – International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents

A bottom-up view of antimicrobial resistance transmission in developing countries – Odion O. Ikhimiukor – Nature Microbiology

Plasmids
Phage-Plasmids Spread Antibiotic Resistance Genes through Infection and Lysogenic Conversion – Eugen Pfeifer – mBio

New antibiotics
Small Molecule Antibiotics Inhibit Distinct Stages of Bacterial Outer Membrane Protein Assembly – Janine H Peterson – mBio

Ring-fused 2-pyridones effective against multidrug-resistant Gram-positive pathogens and synergistic with standard-of-care antibiotics – Taylor M Nye – PNAS

Clinical studies

Oropharyngeal and intestinal concentrations of opportunistic pathogens are independently associated with death of SARS‑CoV‑2 critically ill adults – Juliette Patrier, Khanh Villageois‑Tran, Piotr Szychowiak, Stéphane Ruckly, Rémi Gschwind, Paul‑Henri Wicky, Signara Gueye, Laurence Armand‑Lefevre, Mehdi Marzouk, Romain Sonneville, Lila Bouadma, Marie Petitjean, Fariza Lamara, Etienne de Montmollin, Jean‑Francois Timsit, Etienne Ruppé and The French COVID Cohort Study Group – Critical Care

Genomic characterisation of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Acinetobacter baumannii in two intensive care units in Hanoi, Viet Nam: a prospective observational cohort study – Leah W Roberts – Lancet Microbe

Evolution
*The evolution of spectrum in antibiotics and bacteriocins – Jacob D Palmer and Kevin R
Foster – PNAS
An important weapon in microbial competition is the production of antibiotics. But when is
it preferential for a microbial population to produce wide or narrow spectrum antibiotics?
In this paper Jacob D Palmer and Kevin R Foster have used an evolutionary model approach
in an attempt to shed light on this question.

Antibiotics in the environment
Deciphering chloramphenicol biotransformation mechanisms and microbial interactions via integrated multi‑omics and cultivation‑dependent approaches – Jiayu Zhang, Xiaoyan Li, Uli Klümper, Huaxin Lei, Thomas U. Berendonk, Fangliang Guo, Ke Yu, Chao Yang & Bing Li – Microbiome

Antibiotic resistance mechanisms
L-Form Switching in Escherichia coli as a Common b-Lactam Resistance Mechanism – Aleksandra P Fabijan – Microbiology Spectrum

Antibiotic usage
Factors influencing usage of antimicrobial drugs among pastoralists in Kenya – Dennis N Makau – Tropical Animal Health and Production

Soil
Active antibiotic resistome in soils unraveled by single-cell isotope probing and targeted metagenomics – Hong-Zhe Li – PNAS

Anthropogenic impact
Leave No Trace? Ecological and anthropogenic determinants of antibiotic resistant bacteria in a recreational alpine environment – Laura C Scott – Environmental Research

Podcasts
Microbiology Lab Pod September 2022 Pod: Environmental Antibiotic Resistance – Johan Bengtsson-Palme lab

Webinars
Vaccination as a strategy to combat antimicrobial resistance – Organised by the (CSA) DESIGN One Health AMR, together with MRC, BactiVac