Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) have become recognized contaminants and pose a high public health risk. The animal gut microbiota is a reservoir of ARGs, but the knowledge of the origin and dissemination of ARGs remains unclear. In this study, we provide a comprehensive profile of ARGs and mobile genetic elements in the gut microbiota from 30 bovines to study the impact of modern antibiotics on resistance. A total of 42 ARG types were detected by annotating the metagenomic sequencing data from Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD). We found that the diversity and abundance of ARGs in individual yaks were significantly lower than those in dairy and beef cattle (p < 0.0001). The results of heat map and single nucleotide polymorphism clustering suggest that ARGs from dairy and beef cattle are more similar, whereas those from yaks cluster separately. The long-term use of antibiotics may contribute to this difference, suggesting that antibiotic consumption is the main cause of ARG prevalence. Furthermore, abundant insertions were also found in this study, signifying a strong potential for horizontal transfer of ARGs among microbes, especially pathogens.

中文翻译：

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使用宏基因组方法探索牛肠道微生物群中抗生素抗性基因的流行和分布模式

抗生素抗性基因 (ARG) 已成为公认的污染物并构成高度的公共卫生风险。动物肠道微生物群是 ARGs 的储存库，但关于 ARGs 的起源和传播的知识仍不清楚。在这项研究中，我们提供了 30 头牛肠道微生物群中 ARG 和移动遗传元件的综合概况，以研究现代抗生素对耐药性的影响。通过注释来自综合抗生素耐药性数据库 (CARD) 的宏基因组测序数据，共检测到 42 种 ARG 类型。我们发现个体牦牛ARGs的多样性和丰度显着低于奶牛和肉牛（p <0.0001)。热图和单核苷酸多态性聚类结果表明，奶牛和肉牛的ARGs更相似，而牦牛的ARGs分别聚类。长期使用抗生素可能导致这种差异，表明抗生素消费是 ARG 流行的主要原因。此外，在该研究中还发现了大量插入，这表明 ARG 在微生物，尤其是病原体之间的水平转移具有强大的潜力。