Metagenomic insights into tetracycline effects on microbial community and antibiotic resistance of mouse gut

Abstract

Antibiotics have been widely used for disease prevention and treatment of the human and animals, and for growth promotion in animal husbandry. Antibiotics can disturb the intestinal microbial community, which play a fundamental role in animals' health. Misuse or overuse of antibiotics can result in increase and spread of microbial antibiotic resistance, threatening human health and ecological safety. In this study, we used Illumina Hiseq sequencing, (1)H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and metagenomics approaches to investigate intestinal microbial community shift and antibiotic resistance alteration of the mice drinking the water containing tetracycline hydrochloride (TET). Two-week TET administration caused reduction of gut microbial diversity (from 194 to 89 genera), increase in Firmicutes abundance (from 24.9 to 39.8%) and decrease in Bacteroidetes abundance (from 69.8 to 51.2%). Metagenomic analysis showed that TET treatment affected the intestinal microbial functions of carbohydrate, ribosomal, cell wall/membrane/envelope and signal transduction, which is evidenced by the alteration in the metabolites of mouse serum. Meanwhile, in the mouse intestinal microbiota, TET treatment enhanced the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) (from 307.3 to 1492.7 ppm), plasmids (from 425.4 to 3235.1 ppm) and integrons (from 0.8 to 179.6 ppm) in mouse gut. Our results indicated that TET administration can disturb gut microbial community and physiological metabolism of mice, and increase the opportunity of ARGs and mobile genetic elements entering into the environment with feces discharge.

Minimal selective concentrations of tetracycline in complex aquatic bacterial biofilms

“…It is unclear if this is a reflection of limited bioavailability of TC, use of an already established community in the assay, and/or fewer bacterial generations studied. Selection of tetA was also observed in the fecal bacterial communities of mice given water supplemented with 10 mg/L TC compared to control mice (Yin et al, 2015). Selection of tetG did not occur in this case, which might be related to e.g.…”

Microbial community distribution and dominant bacterial species analysis in the bio-electrochemical system treating low concentration cefuroxime

“…Huang et al used high-throughput sequencing to detect the change in bacterial diversity in different bioreactors with and without tetracycline [20]. Yin et al used Illumina Hiseq sequencing approaches to explore the intestinal microbial community shift and antibiotic resistance alterations in mice taking antibiotics [21]. In this research, authors adopted a MiSeq high-throughput sequencing method based on second generation high-throughput sequencing technology to analyze the 16S rDNA sequences of the samples, to detect the dominant species, the rare species and some unknown species at the same time and to probe the microbial community composition and bacterial relative abundance.…”

Application of genomic technologies to measure and monitor antibiotic resistance in animals

“…As a consequence, animal manure is considered a hotspot for the spread of ARGs and MGEs to the environment . Antibiotic administration is one of the major factors influencing the abundance and diversity of ARGs in animals . Looft et al .…”

“…30,31 Antibiotic administration is one of the major factors influencing the abundance and diversity of ARGs in animals. 88 Looft et al 23,84 investigated the effects of in-feed sublethal antibiotics (i.e., ASP250, an antibiotic feed additive containing chlortetracycline, sulfamethazine, and penicillin) on swine intestinal microbiome ARGs. Analysis of the metagenomes revealed that, despite a high background of ARGs in nonmedicated swine, the abundance and diversity of ARGs increased in the medicated swine microbiome after 14 days of antibiotic treatment; indirect selection of aminoglycoside O-phosphotransferases conferring resistance to antibiotics that were not applied was also observed.…”