Environmental Pollution

0269-7491

289

SCIE

[논문]A hybrid DNA sequencing approach is needed to properly link genotype to phenotype in multi-drug resistant bacteria

Adeel Farooq, Tatsuya Unno

Jungman Kim (김정만)

Shahbaz Raza

Jeonghwan Jang

Dukki Han

Michael J. Sadowsky

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are now viewed as emerging contaminants posing a potential worldwide
human health risk. The degree to which ARGs are transferred to other bacteria via mobile genetic elements
(MGEs), including insertion sequences (ISs), plasmids, and phages, has a strong association with their likelihood
to function as resistance transfer determinants. Consequently, understanding the structure and function of MGEs
is paramount to assessing future health risks associated with ARGs in an environment subjected to strong
antibiotic pressure. In this study we used whole genome sequencing, done using MinION and HiSeq platforms, to
examine antibiotic resistance determinants among four multidrug resistant bacteria isolated from fish farm
effluent in Jeju, South Korea. The combined data was used to ascertain the association between ARGs and MGEs.
Hybrid assembly using HiSeq and MinION reads revealed the presence of IncFIB(K) and pVPH2 plasmids, whose
sizes were verified using pulsed field gel electrophoresis. Twenty four ARGs and 95 MGEs were identified among
the 955 coding sequences annotated on these plasmids. More importantly, 22 of 24 ARGs conferring resistance to
various antibiotics were found to be located near MGEs, whereas about a half of the ARGs (11 out of 21) were so
in chromosomes. Our results also suggest that the total phenotypic resistance exhibited by the isolates was
mainly contributed by these putatively mobilizable ARGs. The study gives genomic insights into the origins of
putatively mobilizable ARGs in bacteria subjected to selection pressure.

2021-11-15

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2021.117856