Antibiotic resistance genes are differentially mobilized according to resistance mechanism.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Screening for antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in especially environmental samples with (meta)genomic sequencing is associated with false-positive predictions of phenotypic resistance. This stems from the fact that most acquired ARGs require being overexpressed before conferring resistance, which is often caused by decontextualization of putative ARGs by mobile genetic elements (MGEs). Consequent overexpression of ARGs can be caused by strong promoters often present in insertion sequence (IS) elements and integrons and the copy number effect of plasmids, which may contribute to high expression of accessory genes.

Results

Here, we screen all complete bacterial RefSeq genomes for ARGs. The genetic contexts of detected ARGs are investigated for IS elements, integro

SUBMITTER: Nielsen TK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9338424 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature