Showing papers by "Linus Sandegren published in 2014"

Selection of a Multidrug Resistance Plasmid by Sublethal Levels of Antibiotics and Heavy Metals

Abstract: How sublethal levels of antibiotics and heavy metals select for clinically important multidrug resistance plasmids is largely unknown. Carriage of plasmids generally confers substantial fitness costs, implying that for the plasmid-carrying bacteria to be maintained in the population, the plasmid cost needs to be balanced by a selective pressure conferred by, for example, antibiotics or heavy metals. We studied the effects of low levels of antibiotics and heavy metals on the selective maintenance of a 220-kbp extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) plasmid identified in a hospital outbreak of Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli. The concentrations of antibiotics and heavy metals required to maintain plasmid-carrying bacteria, the minimal selective concentrations (MSCs), were in all cases below (almost up to 140-fold) the MIC of the plasmid-free susceptible bacteria. This finding indicates that the very low antibiotic and heavy metal levels found in polluted environments and in treated humans and animals might be sufficiently high to maintain multiresistance plasmids. When resistance genes were moved from the plasmid to the chromosome, the MSC decreased, showing that MSC for a specific resistance conditionally depends on genetic context. This finding suggests that a cost-free resistance could be maintained in a population by an infinitesimally low concentration of antibiotic. By studying the effect of combinations of several compounds, it was observed that for certain combinations of drugs each new compound added lowered the minimal selective concentration of the others. This combination effect could be a significant factor in the selection of multidrug resistance plasmids/bacterial clones in complex multidrug environments. Importance: Antibiotic resistance is in many pathogenic bacteria caused by genes that are carried on large conjugative plasmids. These plasmids typically contain multiple antibiotic resistance genes as well as genes that confer resistance to biocides and heavy metals. In this report, we show that very low concentrations of single antibiotics and heavy metals or combinations of compounds can select for a large plasmid that carries resistance to aminoglycosides, β-lactams, tetracycline, macrolides, trimethoprim, sulfonamide, silver, copper, and arsenic. Our findings suggest that the low levels of antibiotics and heavy metals present in polluted external environments and in treated animals and humans could allow for selection and enrichment of bacteria with multiresistance plasmids and thereby contribute to the emergence, maintenance, and transmission of antibiotic-resistant disease-causing bacteria.

Selection of antibiotic resistance at very low antibiotic concentrations

Abstract: Human use of antibiotics has driven the selective enrichment of pathogenic bacteria resistant to clinically used drugs. Traditionally, the selection of resistance has been considered to occur mainly at high, therapeutic levels of antibiotics, but we are now beginning to understand better the importance of selection of resistance at low levels of antibiotics. The concentration of an antibiotic varies in different body compartments during treatment, and low concentrations of antibiotics are found in sewage water, soils, and many water environments due to natural production and contamination from human activities. Selection of resistance at non-lethal antibiotic concentrations (below the wild-type minimum inhibitory concentration) occurs due to differences in growth rate at the particular antibiotic concentration between cells with different tolerance levels to the antibiotic. The minimum selective concentration for a particular antibiotic is reached when its reducing effect on growth of the susceptible strain balances the reducing effect (fitness cost) of the resistance determinant in the resistant strain. Recent studies have shown that resistant bacteria can be selected at concentrations several hundred-fold below the lethal concentrations for susceptible cells. Resistant mutants selected at low antibiotic concentrations are generally more fit than those selected at high concentrations but can still be highly resistant. The characteristics of selection at low antibiotic concentrations, the potential clinical problems of this mode of selection, and potential solutions will be discussed.

High Fitness Costs and Instability of Gene Duplications Reduce Rates of Evolution of New Genes by Duplication-Divergence Mechanisms

Abstract: An important mechanism for generation of new genes is by duplication-divergence of existing genes. Duplication-divergence includes several different submodels, such as subfunctionalization where after accumulation of neutral mutations the original function is distributed between two partially functional and complementary genes, and neofunctionalization where a new function evolves in one of the duplicated copies while the old function is maintained in another copy. The likelihood of these mechanisms depends on the longevity of the duplicated state, which in turn depends on the fitness cost and genetic stability of the duplications. Here, we determined the fitness cost and stability of defined gene duplications/amplifications on a low copy number plasmid. Our experimental results show that the costs of carrying extra gene copies are substantial and that each additional kilo base pairs of DNA reduces fitness by approximately 0.15%. Furthermore, gene amplifications are highly unstable and rapidly segregate to lower copy numbers in absence of selection. Mathematical modeling shows that the fitness costs and instability strongly reduces the likelihood of both sub- and neofunctionalization, but that these effects can be offset by positive selection for novel beneficial functions.

Time lapse investigation of antibiotic susceptibility using a microfluidic linear gradient 3D culture device

Abstract: This study reports a novel approach to quantitatively investigate the antibacterial effect of antibiotics on bacteria using a three-dimensional microfluidic culture device. In particular, our approach is suitable for studying the pharmacodynamics effects of antibiotics on bacterial cells temporally and with a continuous range of concentrations in a single experiment. The responses of bacterial cells to a linear concentration gradient of antibiotics were observed using time-lapse photography, by encapsulating bacterial cells in an agarose-based gel located in a commercially available microfluidics chamber. This approach generates dynamic information with high resolution, in a single operation, e.g., growth curves and antibiotic pharmacodynamics, in a well-controlled environment. No pre-labelling of the cells is needed and therefore any bacterial sample can be tested in this setup. It also provides static information comparable to that of standard techniques for measuring minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). Five antibiotics with different mechanisms were analysed against wild-type Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella Typhimurium. The entire process, including data analysis, took 2.5–4 h and from the same analysis, high-resolution growth curves were obtained. As a proof of principle, a pharmacodynamic model of streptomycin against Salmonella Typhimurium was built based on the maximal effect model, which agreed well with the experimental results. Our approach has the potential to be a simple and flexible solution to study responding behaviours of microbial cells under different selection pressures both temporally and in a range of concentrations.

Selection of Orphan Rhs Toxin Expression in Evolved Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium

Abstract: Clonally derived bacterial populations exhibit significant genotypic and phenotypic diversity that contribute to fitness in rapidly changing environments. Here, we show that serial passage of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium LT2 (StLT2) in broth, or within a mouse host, results in selection of an evolved population that inhibits the growth of ancestral cells by direct contact. Cells within each evolved population gain the ability to express and deploy a cryptic "orphan" toxin encoded within the rearrangement hotspot (rhs) locus. The Rhs orphan toxin is encoded by a gene fragment located downstream of the "main" rhs gene in the ancestral strain StLT2. The Rhs orphan coding sequence is linked to an immunity gene, which encodes an immunity protein that specifically blocks Rhs orphan toxin activity. Expression of the Rhs orphan immunity protein protects ancestral cells from the evolved lineages, indicating that orphan toxin activity is responsible for the observed growth inhibition. Because the Rhs orphan toxin is encoded by a fragmented reading frame, it lacks translation initiation and protein export signals. We provide evidence that evolved cells undergo recombination between the main rhs gene and the rhs orphan toxin gene fragment, yielding a fusion that enables expression and delivery of the orphan toxin. In this manner, rhs locus rearrangement provides a selective advantage to a subpopulation of cells. These observations suggest that rhs genes play important roles in intra-species competition and bacterial evolution.

Silver resistance genes are overrepresented among Escherichia coli isolates with CTX-M production

Abstract: Members of the Enterobacteriaceae with extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBLs) of the CTX-M type have disseminated rapidly in recent years and have become a threat to public health. In parallel w ...

The gull (Chroicocephalus brunnicephalus) as an environmental bioindicator and reservoir for antibiotic resistance on the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal.

Abstract: The presence and frequency of multiresistant bacteria in wild birds act as indicators of the environmental contamination of antibiotic resistance. To explore the rate of contamination mediated by Escherichia coli, 150 fecal samples from the brown-headed gull (Chroicocephalus brunnicephalus) and 8 water samples from the Bay of Bengal area were collected, cultured, and tested for antibiotic susceptibility. Special attention was paid to extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing isolates, which were further characterized genetically. Antibiotic resistance was found in 42.3% (36/85) of the E. coli isolates and multidrug resistance in 11.8%. Isolates from the area with a higher human activity were more resistant than those from an area with a lower level of activity. Most frequent was resistance to ampicillin (29.4%), followed by trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (24.7%) and quinolones (22.4%). Carriage of ESBL-producing E. coli was relatively high (17.3%) in the gulls, whereas no ESBL producers were found in the water. All ESBL-producing E. coli isolates, but one, carried bla(CTX-M-15) or bla(CTX-M-15)-like genes. A bla(CTX-M-14)-like enzyme was found as an exception. Gulls from two different colonies shared E. coli clones and harbored the clinically relevant sequence types ST10, ST48, and ST131. The high frequency of antibiotic resistance and ESBL production among E. coli isolates from gulls indicates that the environmental contamination of antibiotic resistance has already gone far on the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal. Considering the limited control over the antibiotic consumption and waste from human activities in Bangladesh, there is no easy solution in sight.