Antibiotic resistance is ancient

Abstract

The discovery of antibiotics more than 70 years ago initiated a period of drug innovation and implementation in human and animal health and agriculture. These discoveries were tempered in all cases by the emergence of resistant microbes. This history has been interpreted to mean that antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria is a modern phenomenon; this view is reinforced by the fact that collections of microbes that predate the antibiotic era are highly susceptible to antibiotics. Here we report targeted metagenomic analyses of rigorously authenticated ancient DNA from 30,000-year-old Beringian permafrost sediments and the identification of a highly diverse collection of genes encoding resistance to β-lactam, tetracycline and glycopeptide antibiotics. Structure and function studies on the complete vancomycin resistance element VanA confirmed its similarity to modern variants. These results show conclusively that antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon that predates the modern selective pressure of clinical antibiotic use.

Antibiotic resistance genes in an urban river as impacted by bacterial community and physicochemical parameters

“…The high level of qacEΔ1 genes may result from the overuse and abuse of quaternary ammonium compounds which have widespread commercial applications (Ruan et al 2014;Wassenaar et al 2015) that may lead to an increasing prevalence of resistance genes impacting human health. We also found high levels of vancomycin resistance genes which are relatively rare in natural environments with an absolute abundance range from 4.44 × 10 6 to 8.17 × 10 8 copies per L. Vancomycin is a fallback therapy against microorganisms in hospitals suggesting that wastewater from medical facilities could be a source of ARGs as inferred in previous studies (Zhu et al 2017;D'Costa et al 2011). The transposase gene was detected in each sample, indicating a potential for horizontal gene transfer of ARGs .…”

Ancient permafrost staphylococci carry antibiotic resistance genes

“…However, for S. hominis MMP2, multiple genes associated with resistance to different groups of antibiotics were identified. It has been shown that 30,000-year-old bacteria also contained antibiotic resistance genes in their genomes [46], and evidence has been presented in support of this finding [47]. Our results strengthen the hypothesis that antibiotic resistance is an ancient feature.…”

High Throughput Profiling of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Urban Park Soils with Reclaimed Water Irrigation

“…Even for the six control samples, an average of 81 ARGs were detected, especially in the BTC sample, where up to 106 ARGs were detected, demonstrating that ARGs are diverse and ubiquitous in natural environments. 25 Previous studies have demonstrated that antibiotic resistance is a natural and ancient phenomenon and ARGs have been found in permafrost sediments, 25 pristine forest, 27 and deep oceans. 30 Judged for the 147 ARGs detected, antibiotic deactivation (41%) and efflux pump (39%) were the two most dominant resistance mechanisms, followed by cellular protection resistance mechanism (18%) ( Figure 1A).…”

“…13 In the present study, a high-throughput qPCR with 295 validated primer sets (including 285 ARGs, 9 transposase genes, and 16S rRNA gene) has been used to investigate the impact of RWI on ARGs in public park soils of representative Chinese cities. Since ARGs can be present naturally, 24,25 the background level needs to be considered. So, soil samples without using reclaimed water were also collected as control for each RWI park soil.…”