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The antibiotic resistome: gene flow in environments, animals and human beings

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Abstract

The antibiotic resistance is natural in bacteria and predates the human use of antibiotics. Numerous antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) have been discovered to confer resistance to a wide range of antibiotics. The ARGs in natural environments are highly integrated and tightly regulated in specific bacterial metabolic networks. However, the antibiotic selection pressure conferred by the use of antibiotics in both human medicine and agriculture practice leads to a significant increase of antibiotic resistance and a steady accumulation of ARGs in bacteria. In this review, we summarized, with an emphasis on an ecological point of view, the important research progress regarding the collective ARGs (antibiotic resistome) in bacterial communities of natural environments, human and animals, i.e., in the one health settings.We propose that the resistance gene flow in nature is “from the natural environments” and “to the natural environments”; human and animals, as intermediate recipients and disseminators, contribute greatly to such a resistance gene “circulation.”

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, No. 2015CB554200), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81401701 and 31471203), the Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation (No. 5152019) and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. 2015069). G.F.G. is a leading principal investigator of the National Natural Science Foundation of China Innovative Research Group (No. 81321063).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Yongfei Hu, George F. Gao & Baoli Zhu

  2. Beijing Key Laboratory of Microbial Drug Resistance and Resistome, Beijing, 100101, China

    Yongfei Hu, George F. Gao & Baoli Zhu

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310006, China

    Yongfei Hu, George F. Gao & Baoli Zhu

  4. Research Network of Immunity and Health (RNIH), Beijing Institutes of Life Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    George F. Gao

  5. Office of Director-General, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), Beijing, 102206, China

    George F. Gao

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  1. Yongfei Hu
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Hu, Y., Gao, G.F. & Zhu, B. The antibiotic resistome: gene flow in environments, animals and human beings. Front. Med. 11, 161–168 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11684-017-0531-x

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