Host-specific plasmid evolution explains the variable spread of clinical antibiotic-resistance plasmids.

ABSTRACT: Antibiotic resistance encoded on plasmids is a pressing global health problem. Predicting which plasmids spread in the long term remains very challenging, even though some key parameters influencing plasmid stability have been identified, such as plasmid growth costs and horizontal transfer rates. Here, we show these parameters evolve in a strain-specific way among clinical plasmids and bacteria, and this occurs rapidly enough to alter the relative likelihoods of different bacterium-plasmid combinations spreading. We used experiments with Escherichia coli and antibiotic-resistance plasmids isolated from patients, paired with a mathematical model, to track long-term plasmid stability (beyond antibiotic exposure). Explaining variable stability across six bacterium-plasmid combinations

SUBMITTER: Benz F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10104558 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature