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Marine Sediment Bacteria Harbor Antibiotic Resistance Genes Highly Similar to Those Found in Human Pathogens

  • Microbiology of Aquatic Systems
  • Published:
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Abstract

The ocean is a natural habitat for antibiotic-producing bacteria, and marine aquaculture introduces antibiotics into the ocean to treat infections and improve aquaculture production. Studies have shown that the ocean is an important reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes. However, there is a lack of understanding and knowledge about the clinical importance of the ocean resistome. We investigated the relationship between the ocean bacterial resistome and pathogenic resistome. We applied high-throughput sequencing and metagenomic analyses to explore the resistance genes in bacterial plasmids from marine sediments. Numerous putative resistance determinants were detected among the resistance genes in the sediment bacteria. We also found that several contigs shared high identity with transposons or plasmids from human pathogens, indicating that the sediment bacteria recently contributed or acquired resistance genes from pathogens. Marine sediment bacteria could play an important role in the global exchange of antibiotic resistance.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. KSCX2-EW-J-6) and the National High-Technology Research and Development Program (“863” Program) of China (grant no. 2012AA092001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.1 West Beichen Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China

    Jing Yang, Chao Wang, Li Liu & Jie Feng

  2. CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.7 Beitucheng West Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029, China

    Chang Shu, Jianing Geng & Songnian Hu

Authors
  1. Jing Yang
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  2. Chao Wang
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  3. Chang Shu
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  4. Li Liu
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  5. Jianing Geng
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  6. Songnian Hu
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  7. Jie Feng
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Correspondence to Jie Feng.

Additional information

Jing Yang, Chao Wang, and Chang Shu contributed to this work equally.

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Yang, J., Wang, C., Shu, C. et al. Marine Sediment Bacteria Harbor Antibiotic Resistance Genes Highly Similar to Those Found in Human Pathogens. Microb Ecol 65, 975–981 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-013-0187-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-013-0187-2

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