title: Antimicrobial resistance genes in marine bacteria and human uropathogenic Escherichia coli from a region of intensive aquaculture.
abstract: Antimicrobials are heavily used in Chilean salmon aquaculture. We previously found significant differences in antimicrobial-resistant bacteria between sediments from an aquaculture and a non-aquaculture site. We now show that levels of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARG) are significantly higher in antimicrobial-selected marine bacteria than in unselected bacteria from these sites. While ARG in tetracycline- and florfenicol-selected bacteria from aquaculture and non-aquaculture sites were equally frequent, there were significantly more plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance genes per bacterium and significantly higher numbers of qnrB genes in quinolone-selected bacteria from the aquaculture site. Quinolone-resistant urinary Escherichia coli from patients in the Chilean aquacultural region were significantly enriched for qnrB (including a novel qnrB gene), qnrS, qnrA and aac(6')-1b, compared with isolates from New York City. Sequences of qnrA1, qnrB1 and qnrS1 in quinolone-resistant Chilean E. coli and Chilean marine bacteria were identical, suggesting horizontal gene transfer between antimicrobial-resistant marine bacteria and human pathogens.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, New York Medical College, New York, NY, USA.|Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Physiology, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia.
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tomova
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, New York Medical College, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Larisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ivanova
authors.affiliation: Centro i∼mar and CeBiB, Universidad de Los Lagos, Puerto Montt, Chile.
authors.forename: Alejandro H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Buschmann
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Microbiologia, Hospital de Puerto Montt, Chile, Puerto Montt, Chile.
authors.forename: Maria Luisa
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Rioseco
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Microbiology Section, Bellevue Hospital Center, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Rajinder K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Kalsi
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, New York Medical College, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Henry P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Godfrey
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, New York Medical College, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Felipe C
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Cabello
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use; D017756:Aquaculture / Q000379:methods*; D002677:Chile; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D022761:Gene Transfer, Horizontal; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009519:New York City; D010957:Plasmids / Q000032:analysis; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017385:Sequence Homology; D014552:Urinary Tract Infections / Q000382:microbiology*; D056689:Uropathogenic Escherichia coli / Q000302:isolation & purification*
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D004269:DNA, Bacterial