AMR FEBRUARY, 2021

February digest highlights the current state of vaccines against resistant bacterial pathogens and novel ways by which they can evolve resistance, effects of common sweeteners on conjugation rate and how international travel contributes to spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria, and much more. Check out our selection of AMR focused podcast episodes and webinars. Happy reading!

Global

Newsletter: WHO Antimicrobial Resistance Newsletter 2021 – WHO

Review: Antimicrobial resistance and COVID-19: Intersections and implications – Gwenan M. Knight – eLife

Review: The role of vaccines in combatting antimicrobial resistance – Francesca Micoli – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Vaccines against AMR pathogens

Review: Beyond Antimicrobial Use: A Framework for Prioritizing Antimicrobial Resistance Interventions – Noelle R. Noyes – Annual Review of Animal Biosciences

Clinically relevant mutations in core metabolic genes confer antibiotic resistance – Allison J. Lopatkin – Science

mutations in core metabolic genes confer antibiotic resistance *Mutations targeting central carbon and energy metabolism arise in response to antibiotic treatment. These mutations confer resistance and are highly prevalent in clinical pathogens, expanding the known means by which pathogenic microbes can evolve resistance.

Nonnutritive sweeteners can promote the dissemination of antibiotic resistance through conjugative gene transfer – Zhigang Yu – ISME Journal
*Exposure to nonnutritive sweeteners (saccharine, sucralose, aspartame) enhances conjugation in bacteria.

Using ecological coexistence theory to understand antibiotic resistance and microbial competition – Andrew D. Letten – Nature Ecology & Evolution

Human resistome

Characterization of the human skin resistome and identification of two microbiota cutotypes – Zhiming Li – Microbiome

Dynamics of intestinal multidrug-resistant bacteria colonisation contracted by visitors to a high-endemic setting: a prospective, daily, real-time sampling study – Anu Kantele – Lancet Microbe
*International travel contributes substantially to the global spread of intestinal multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. Real-time sampling study of 20 European visitors to Laos volunteered to provide daily stool samples.

Quantifying the effects of antibiotic treatment on the extracellular polymer network of antimicrobial resistant and sensitive biofilms using multiple particle tracking – Lydia C. Powell – npj Biofilms Microbiomes

Soil

Bacterial communities regulate temporal variations of the antibiotic resistome in soil following manure amendment – Jianhua Cheng – Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Water environment

Microbiota analysis of rural and urban surface waters and sediments in Bangladesh identifies human waste as driver of antibiotic resistance – Ross Stuart McInnes – bioRxiv

Antibiotic Resistance in Wastewater Treatment Plants and Transmission Risks for Employees and Residents: The Concept of the AWARE Study – Laura Wengenroth – medRxiv

Animal studies

Metagenomics of antimicrobial and heavy metal resistance in the cecal microbiome of fattening pigs raised without antibiotics – Paiboon Tunsagool – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Bioinformatics

A roadmap for the generation of benchmarking resources for antimicrobial resistance detection using next generation sequencing – Mauro Petrillo – F1000Research

HMD-ARG: hierarchical multi-task deep learning for annotating antibiotic resistance genes – Yu Li – Microbiome

Critical evaluation of short, long, and hybrid assembly for contextual analysis of antibiotic resistance genes in complex environmental metagenomes – Connor L. Brown – Scientific Reports
Critical evaluation of the impact of assembly leveraging short reads, nanopore MinION long-reads, and a combination of the two (hybrid) on ARG contextualization using seven prominent assemblers.

PathoFact: a pipeline for the prediction of virulence factors and antimicrobial resistance genes in metagenomic data – Laura de Nies – Microbiome

Techniques

Creation of Universal Primers Targeting Nonconserved, Horizontally Mobile Genes: Lessons and Considerations – Damon C. Brown and Raymond J. Turner – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Robustness in quantifying the abundance of antimicrobial resistance genes in pooled faeces samples from batches of slaughter pigs using metagenomics analysis – Vibe Dalhoff Andersen – Journal of Global Antimicrobial Resistance

Webinars and conferences

Resistomap Webinar Series: Monitoring ARGs in LMICs –  Resistomap – 30 March 2021

CAMDA 2021 Conference – ISMB ECCB – 26-27 July 2021
Data analysis contest challenges: The Metagenomic Phage Forensics of Anti-Microbial Resistance

The Initiative Seminar Engineering Health: Joining forces in healthcare solutions – Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg – 13-14 April 2021
*Johan Bengtsson-Palme will talk about Antibiotic resistance as a health and research challenge.

Learning from COVID-19 to tackle the silent pandemic of antibiotic resistance – GARDP – 4 March 2021

AMR Innovation Mission UK 2021 – AMR Insights – 10-12 May 2021

The One Health EJP Annual Scientific Meeting – One Health EJP – 9-11 June 2021

Podcast

The AMR studio:  Ep 25. Linus Sandegren & mobile genetic elements. Identifying resistance origins. Reimbursing ABs. – Uppsala Antibiotic Center – 1 February 2021 

Dr. Heer Mehta: Antibiotic Resistance and Experimental Evolution – The Bioinformatics and Beyond Podcast – 6 February 2021

Courses

Tackling Antibiotic Resistance: What Should Dental Teams Do? – British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and FDI World Dental Federation
Discover the danger posed by antibiotic resistance, and how dental teams can meet the challenge to protect patients.