Cited by 160Antibiotic Resistance in BacteriaPharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental ImpactsGut microbiota and health

Good microbes, bad genes? The dissemination of antimicrobial resistance in the human microbiome

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Crits-Christoph, Alexander, Hallowell, Haley Anne, Koutouvalis, Kalia, Suez, Jotham·2022·Gut Microbes

Abstract

A global rise in antimicrobial resistance among pathogenic bacteria has proved to be a major public health threat, with the rate of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections increasing over time. The gut microbiome has been studied as a reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) that can be transferred to bacterial pathogens via horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of conjugative plasmids and mobile genetic elements (the gut resistome). Advances in metagenomic sequencing have facilitated the identification of resistome modulators, including live microbial therapeutics such as probiotics and fecal microbiome transplantation that can either expand or reduce the abundances of ARG-carrying bacteria in the gut. While many different gut microbes encode for ARGs, they are not uniformly distributed across, or transmitted by, various members of the microbiome, and not all are of equal clinical relevance. Both experimental and theoretical approaches in microbial ecology have been applied to understand differing frequencies of ARG horizontal transfer between commensal microbes as well as between commensals and pathogens. In this commentary, we assess the evidence for the role of commensal gut microbes in encoding antimicrobial resistance genes, the degree to which they are shared both with other commensals and with pathogens, and the host and environmental factors that can impact resistome dynamics. We further discuss novel sequencing-based approaches for identifying ARGs and predicting future transfer events of clinically relevant ARGs from commensals to pathogens.

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Crossref · 10.1080/19490976.2022.2055944

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  • In vivo transfer via conjugation of AR genes from viable probiotic bacteria acting as donors was documented in 1998 and several papers since have confirmed the transferability of AR genes within the gut.

    “In vivo transfer via conjugation of AR genes from viable probiotic bacteria acting as donors was documented in 199833 and several papers since have confirmed the transferability of AR genes within the gut for a recent review see.34”

    From Emerging issues in probiotic safety: 2023 perspectives (2023) · cites this paper as [34]

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  1. [84]Fiona Judge M, Gréta Tóth A, Ágnes Nagy S, Papp M, Solymosi N. A survey on antimicrobial resistance genes of frequently used bacteria in kefir and yoghurt [Internet]. Biorxiv. 2022. [cited 2022 Feb 19]. Available from: http://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.12.476061v1.full. · DOI

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Authors
Crits-Christoph, A., Hallowell, H. A., Koutouvalis, K., & Suez, J.
Affiliations
  • Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Johns Hopkins University (US)
Corresponding author
Suez, Jotham
Venue
Gut Microbes
Published
2022-03-25
Volume
14
Issue
1
Pages
2055944-2055944
ISSN
  • 1949-0976 (ISSN-L)
  • 1949-0984
OpenAlex
W4221117022
Cited by
156
References
115
Citations by year
2026: 34 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 45 · 2023: 35 · 2022: 6
FWCI
2.33
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Gut Microbes (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
article
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Medicine › Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gut microbiota and health
Keywords
antimicrobial resistance genes, gut microbiota, horizontal gene transfer, commensal bacteria, gut resistome, probiotics, conjugative plasmids, mobile genetic elements, multidrug resistance
MeSH terms
Gastrointestinal Microbiome, Anti-Bacterial Agents, Bacteria, Genes, Bacterial, Humans, Drug Resistance, Bacterial, Metagenomics, Microbiota

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