Gene Transmission in the One Health Microbiosphere and the Channels of Antimicrobial Resistance

Abstract

Antibiotic resistance is a field in which the concept of One Health can best be illustrated. One Health is based on the definition of communication spaces among diverse environments. Antibiotic resistance is encoded by genes, however, these genes are propagated in mobile genetic elements (MGEs), circulating among bacterial species and clones that are integrated into the multiple microbiotas of humans, animals, food, sewage, soil, and water environments, the One Health microbiosphere. The dynamics and evolution of antibiotic resistance depend on the communication networks linking all these ecological, biological, and genetic entities. These communications occur by environmental overlapping and merging, a critical issue in countries with poor sanitation, but also favored by the homogenizing power of globalization. The overwhelming increase in the population of highly uniform food animals has contributed to the parallel increase in the absolute size of their microbiotas, consequently enhancing the possibility of microbiome merging between humans and animals. Microbial communities coalescence might lead to shared microbiomes in which the spread of antibiotic resistance (of human, animal, or environmental origin) is facilitated. Intermicrobiome communication is exerted by shuttle bacterial species (or clones within species) belonging to generalist taxa, able to multiply in the microbiomes of various hosts, including humans, animals, and plants. Their integration into local genetic exchange communities fosters antibiotic resistance gene flow, following the channels of accessory genome exchange among bacterial species. These channels delineate a topology of gene circulation, including dense clusters of species with frequent historical and recent exchanges. The ecological compatibility of these species, sharing the same niches and environments, determines the exchange possibilities. In summary, the fertility of the One Health approach to antibiotic

Antibiotic Resistance: Moving From Individual Health Norms to Social Norms in One Health and Global Health

“…Although not belonging to the antibiotic resistome, genes frequently associated with resistance to other antimicrobials, such as heavy metals or biocides, as well as the genes of the MGEs backbones, eventually involved in the transmission and selection of ARGs among microbial populations, the mobilome at large, are also relevant to track the emergence and dissemination of AR among different habitats ( Lanza et al, 2015 ; Martinez et al, 2017 ; Baquero et al, 2019 ).…”

“…HGT processes are recognized as the main mechanisms for transmission of genetic information ( Baquero, 2017 ). From the ecological point of view, HGT should be understood as a cooperative mechanism that allows the exploitation of common goods as ARGs ( Baquero et al, 2019 ) by different members within bacterial communities. In fact, some studies suggest that the ecological consequences of HGT events in AR evolution are contingent on the cooperation of complex bacterial communities, besides the acquisition of individual adaptive traits ( Smillie et al, 2011 ).…”

Horizontal Gene Transfer: From Evolutionary Flexibility to Disease Progression

“…The possibility of HGT occurrence increases due to the proximal contact of donorrecipient genomes with each other (Adato et al, 2015;Brown and Wernegreen, 2019). The results of phylogenetic and eukaryotic nuclear genome analysis showed that the information expressed by HGT can affect a wide variety of genes (Baquero et al, 2019;Campos et al, 2019;Leclerc et al, 2019). Accordingly, HGT is essential for the evolution of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes.…”

Ecogenetics of antibiotic resistance in Listeria monocytogenes

“…Sharedness with Lactococcus and Lactobacillus was found to be below 1%. This analysis can be certainly biased by the number of genomes of each species available in databases, but in general pangenome gene connectivity should reflect the possibility of sharing antibiotic resistance genes (Baquero, Coque, Martínez, Aracil‐Gisbert, & Lanza, ).…”