Selective and suppressive effects of antibiotics on donor and recipient bacterial strains in gut microbiota determine transmission efficiency of blaNDM-1-bearing plasmids. (15th April 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ye, Lianwei; Chan, Edward Wai Chi; Chen, Sheng
• Is Part Of: Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy. Volume 74:Number 7(2019)
• Page Start: 1867
• Page End: 1875
• Publication Date: 2019-04-15
• Subjects: Anti-infective agents -- Periodicals; Chemotherapy -- Periodicals; 615.58
• DOI: 10.1093/jac/dkz137
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-7453

Abstract

Abstract: Objectives: To test whether antibiotics of different functional categories exhibit differential potential in promoting transmission of MDR-encoding plasmids among members of the gut microbiome. Methods: Rats inoculated with bla NDM-1 -bearing Klebsiella pneumoniae were subjected to treatment with different types of antibiotics. The structural changes in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract microbiome were determined by 16S rRNA sequencing and analysis. In addition, the efficiency of transmission of bla NDM-1 -bearing plasmids to different subtypes of GI tract Escherichia coli was also confirmed in vitro . Results: We showed that drugs that are commonly used to treat Gram-negative bacterial infections, such as ampicillin and amoxicillin, could enrich both carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) and antibiotic-susceptible E. coli in the GI tract, thereby promoting transmission of the bla NDM-1 -bearing plasmid in the gut microbiome. In contrast, meropenem was found to minimize the population of CRE in the gut microbiome, hence treatment with this drug exhibited drastically lower potential to promote transmission of the bla NDM-1 -bearing plasmid to the recipient strains. We further showed that an increased population size of Proteobacteria due to a suppressive effect on Firmicutes is a key factor in enhancing the efficiency of transmission of the bla NDM-1 -bearing plasmid and hence dissemination of carbapenem-resistant strains. Conclusions: This study depicted for the first time the effect of different antibiotics on the structure of the rat GI tract microbiome, which in turn determined the pattern and rate of transmission of the bla NDM-1 -bearing plasmid. Such findings can help establish new guidelines for prudent antibiotic usage to minimize the chance of dissemination of mobile resistance elements among members of the GI tract microbiome.