Molecular Insights into Antimicrobial Resistance Traits of Multidrug Resistant Enteric Pathogens isolated from India

Promod Kumar ,Preety Rana,Satyabrata Bag,Thandavarayan Ramamurthy,Tushar Kanti Maiti ,Neetu Sharma ,Bipasa Saha,Pranita Hanpude,Dhirendra Kumar,Anbumani Desigamani,Mayanka Dayal,Jyoti Verma,Rupak K Bhadra,G Balakrish Nair,Shruti Saxena,Archana Pant,Tarini Shankar Ghosh,Asish K Mukhopadhyay,Prasanta Kumar Dey ,Bhabatosh Das

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-14791-1

Abstract

Emergence of antimicrobial resistant Gram-negative bacteria has created a serious global health crisis and threatens the effectiveness of most, if not all, antibiotics commonly used to prevent and treat bacterial infections. There is a dearth of detailed studies on the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) patterns in India. Here, we have isolated and examined AMR patterns of 654 enteric pathogens and investigated complete genome sequences of isolates from six representative genera, which in aggregate encode resistance against 22 antibiotics representing nine distinct drug classes. This study revealed that ~97% isolates are resistant against ≥2 antibiotics, ~24% isolates are resistant against ≥10 antibiotics and ~3% isolates are resistant against ≥15 antibiotics. Analyses of whole genome sequences of six extensive drug resistant enteric pathogens revealed presence of multiple mobile genetic elements, which are physically linked with resistance traits. These elements are therefore appearing to be responsible for disseminating drug resistance among bacteria through horizontal gene transfer. The present study provides insights into the linkages between the resistance patterns to certain antibiotics and their usage in India. The findings would be useful to understand the genetics of resistance traits and severity of and difficulty in tackling AMR enteric pathogens.

Highlights

Infectious diseases are one of the major problems in public health and global economies
The knowledge generated in this study will help to understand the biology of resistance encoding traits in the enteric pathogens of public health importance, and could be helpful in infectious disease management and in the development of strategies to cure resistance-encoding functions from the genome of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) pathogens
We selected 22 different antibiotics belonging to 9 different classes that interact with essential cellular components of bacteria and interrupt major cellular metabolic pathways including DNA replication and repair, transcription, protein synthesis, folate metabolism and cell-wall biosynthesis

Summary

Introduction

Infectious diseases are one of the major problems in public health and global economies. Antimicrobials against bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites are the most important tools in medicine to prevent and cure microbial infections They eliminate or inhibit microbial growth by impeding essential cellular processes including DNA, RNA and protein syntheses, cell wall biosynthesis and folate metabolism[2]. To combat the threat of AMR pathogens, knowledge on molecular identity of resistance traits, their mechanisms of acquisition and dissemination in the microbial community are essential. The whole genome sequences provided molecular insights into resistance traits, genetic elements carrying resistance encoding genes and their possible mode of dissemination to the susceptible microbes. The knowledge generated in this study will help to understand the biology of resistance encoding traits in the enteric pathogens of public health importance, and could be helpful in infectious disease management and in the development of strategies to cure resistance-encoding functions from the genome of AMR pathogens

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Discussion

Conclusion