title: Antibiotic resistance differentiates Echinacea purpurea endophytic bacterial communities with respect to plant organs.
abstract: Recent findings have shown that antibiotic resistance is widespread in multiple environments and multicellular organisms, as plants, harboring rich and complex bacterial communities, could be hot spot for emergence of antibiotic resistances as a response to bioactive molecules production by members of the same community. Here, we investigated a panel of 137 bacterial isolates present in different organs of the medicinal plant Echinacea purpurea, aiming to evaluate if different plant organs harbor strains with different antibiotic resistance profiles, implying then the presence of different biological interactions in the communities inhabiting different plant organs. Data obtained showed a large antibiotic resistance variability among strains, which was strongly related to the different plant organs (26% of total variance, P < 0.0001). Interestingly this uneven antibiotic resistance pattern was present also when a single genus (Pseudomonas), ubiquitous in all organs, was analyzed and no correlation of antibiotic resistance pattern with genomic relatedness among strains was found. In conclusion, we speculate that antibiotic resistance patterns are tightly linked to the type of plant organ under investigation, suggesting the presence of differential forms of biological interaction in stem/leaves, roots and rhizosphere.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Florence, Via Madonna del Piano 6, I-50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mengoni
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Florence, Via Madonna del Piano 6, I-50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Maida
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Florence, Via Madonna del Piano 6, I-50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy; Consiglio per la Ricerca e la Sperimentazione in Agricoltura, Centro di Ricerca per l'Agrobiologia e la Pedologia (CRA-ABP), Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Carolina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chiellini
authors.affiliation: Tree and Timber Institute National Research Council, Via Madonna del Piano 10, I-50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Emiliani
authors.affiliation: Consiglio per la Ricerca e la Sperimentazione in Agricoltura, Centro di Ricerca per l'Agrobiologia e la Pedologia (CRA-ABP), Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mocali
authors.affiliation: Consiglio per la Ricerca e la Sperimentazione in Agricoltura, Centro di Ricerca per l'Agrobiologia e la Pedologia (CRA-ABP), Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Arturo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fabiani
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Florence, Via Madonna del Piano 6, I-50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fondi
authors.affiliation: Center for Integrative Medicine, Careggi University Hospital, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Firenzuoli
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Florence, Via Madonna del Piano 6, I-50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy. Electronic address: renato.fani@unifi.it.
authors.forename: Renato
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fani
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial; D020900:Echinacea / Q000382:microbiology*; D060026:Endophytes / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D018514:Plant Structures / Q000382:microbiology*
keywords: Antibiotic resistance; Endophytes; Medicinal plants; Pseudomonas