Conserved phylogenetic distribution and limited antibiotic resistance of class 1 integrons revealed by assessing the bacterial genome and plasmid collection

An Ni Zhang, Li-Guan Li, Liping Ma, Michael R. Gillings, James M. Tiedje, Tong Zhang*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    82 Citations (Scopus)
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    Abstract

    Background: Integrons, especially the class 1 integrons, are major contributors to the acquisition and dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). However, comprehensive knowledge of the types, content, and distribution of integrons in bacterial taxa is lacking to evaluate their contribution. Results: We have constructed a new integrase database and developed a pipeline that provides comprehensive recovery of class 1 integrons. Previous PCR-based techniques might only detect one fourth of the integron-integrases and integrons recovered in this study. By exploring the class 1 integrons in over 73,000 currently available complete and draft bacterial genomes, the contribution of class 1 integrons in spreading and acquiring ARGs was evaluated. Firstly, the host species of class 1 integrons are highly conserved within (96%) in class Gammaproteobacteria, dominated by four pathogenic species of "ESKAPE." Secondly, more than half of class 1 integrons are embedded in chromosomes with less potential for horizontal gene transfer. Finally, ARGs that have been acquired by these integrons only cover 11% of all the ARG genotypes detected in bacterial genomes. Conclusions: The above observations indicated that there are both biological and ecological limitations to class 1 integrons in acquiring and spreading ARGs across different classes of the domain Bacteria.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number130
    Pages (from-to)1-14
    Number of pages14
    JournalMicrobiome
    Volume6
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 21 Jul 2018

    Bibliographical note

    Copyright the Author(s) 2018. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

    Keywords

    • class 1 integrons
    • antibiotic resistance
    • whole genome analysis
    • bioinformatics
    • database construction

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