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Volume 7, Issue 10

A genomic epidemiological study shows that prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in is associated with the livestock host, as well as antimicrobial usage Open Access

Abstract

Enterobacterales from livestock are potentially important reservoirs for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to pass through the food chain to humans, thereby increasing the AMR burden and affecting our ability to tackle infections. In this study 168 isolates from four genera of the order , primarily , were purified from livestock (cattle, pigs and sheep) faeces from 14 farms in the United Kingdom. Their genomes were resolved using long- and short-read sequencing to analyse AMR genes and their genetic context, as well as to explore the relationship between AMR burden and on-farm antimicrobial usage (AMU), in the three months prior to sampling. Although isolates were genomically diverse, phylogenetic analysis using a core-genome SNP tree indicated pig isolates to generally be distinct from sheep isolates, with cattle isolates being intermediates. Approximately 28 % of isolates harboured AMR genes, with the greatest proportion detected in pigs, followed by cattle then sheep; pig isolates also harboured the highest number of AMR genes per isolate. Although 90 % of sequenced isolates harboured diverse plasmids, only 11 % of plasmids (=58 out of 522) identified contained AMR genes, with 91 % of AMR plasmids being from pig, 9 % from cattle and none from sheep isolates; these results indicated that pigs were a principle reservoir of AMR genes harboured by plasmids and likely to be involved in their horizontal transfer. Significant associations were observed between AMU (mg kg) and AMR. As both the total and the numbers of different antimicrobial classes used on-farm increased, the risk of multi-drug resistance (MDR) in isolates rose. However, even when AMU on pig farms was comparatively low, pig isolates had increased likelihood of being MDR; harbouring relatively more resistances than those from other livestock species. Therefore, our results indicate that AMR prevalence in livestock is not only influenced by recent AMU on-farm but also livestock-related factors, which can influence the AMR burden in these reservoirs and its plasmid mediated transmission.

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Published Online:
Keyword(s): antimicrobial resistance , antimicrobial usage , livestock and plasmid
Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance at the University of Oxford in partnership with Public Health England (PHE) (Award NIHR200915)
    • Principle Award Recipient: DerrickW Crook
  • Antimicrobial Resistance Cross-council Initiative (Award NE/N019989/1)
    • Principle Award Recipient: DerrickW Crook
© 2021 The Authors
  • This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. This article was made open access via a Publish and Read agreement between the Microbiology Society and the corresponding author’s institution.
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A genomic epidemiological study shows that prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in Enterobacterales is associated with the livestock host, as well as antimicrobial usage
M Gen 7, 000630 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000630
/content/journal/mgen/10.1099/mgen.0.000630
/content/journal/mgen/10.1099/mgen.0.000630
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