Captive breeding of specialty animals represents an overlooked yet critical reservoir for spreading antibiotic resistance genes.

ABSTRACT: Driven by wildlife conservation and economic demands, captive breeding has expanded globally, intensifying wildlife-human interactions. In specialty animal breeding, particularly for species with short domestication histories and underdeveloped breeding protocols, clinically important antibiotics are commonly misused, posing potential ecological and health risks that remain largely unexplored. We collected fecal samples from three groups of musk deer (Moschus berezovskii): those exposed to clinically important antibiotics, those not exposed for six months, and wild musk deer, and analyzed their microbiomes and resistomes using metagenomic and culture-based methods. We found that captivity significantly expanded and reshaped the fecal resistome of musk deer. The antibiotic-exposed musk deer

SUBMITTER: Xi J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12904276 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature