Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is widespread, with resistant pathogens found not only in the clinic but throughout the natural and built environments. It is unclear, however, to what extent AMR should be expected to persist in the environment: Laboratory experiments have suggested that resistance is typically costly, and hence should be selected against. However, such studies may not generalize to broader environmental settings. As such, we estimated the fitness of six AMR mutants of Escherichia coli in ten media reflecting ecological niches, human hosts, and standard lab conditions. We found extensive evidence for genotype × environment interactions, with different genotypes favored in different environments. Resistance alleles did not suffer a cost in some environments, raising the possibility of environmental reservoirs of resistance. Interestingly, fitness tended to be higher in lower quality environments. Our findings emphasize the need to consider the ecology and evolution of resistance in the broader environment in the management of AMR.

中文翻译：

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环境异质性对大肠杆菌抗生素耐药突变适应性的影响

抗微生物药物耐药性 (AMR) 很普遍，不仅在临床中，而且在整个自然和建筑环境中都发现了耐药病原体。然而，尚不清楚 AMR 应该在多大程度上在环境中持续存在：实验室实验表明抗药性通常是昂贵的，因此应该选择反对。但是，此类研究可能无法推广到更广泛的环境设置。因此，我们估计了 6 个大肠杆菌 AMR 突变体在 10 个培养基中的适应性，反映了生态位、人类宿主和标准实验室条件。我们发现了基因型 × 环境相互作用的广泛证据，不同的基因型在不同的环境中受到青睐。在某些环境中，抗性等位基因不会受到影响，这增加了抗性环境库的可能性。有趣的是，在较低质量的环境中，健康度往往更高。我们的研究结果强调需要在 AMR 管理中考虑更广泛环境中耐药性的生态和进化。