Variability of plasmid fitness effects contributes to plasmid persistence in bacterial communities.

ABSTRACT: Plasmid persistence in bacterial populations is strongly influenced by the fitness effects associated with plasmid carriage. However, plasmid fitness effects in wild-type bacterial hosts remain largely unexplored. In this study, we determined the fitness effects of the major antibiotic resistance plasmid pOXA-48_K8 in wild-type, ecologically compatible enterobacterial isolates from the human gut microbiota. Our results show that although pOXA-48_K8 produced an overall reduction in bacterial fitness, it produced small effects in most bacterial hosts, and even beneficial effects in several isolates. Moreover, genomic results showed a link between pOXA-48_K8 fitness effects and bacterial phylogeny, helping to explain plasmid epidemiology. Incorporating our fitness results into a simple popula

SUBMITTER: Alonso-Del Valle A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8113577 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature