Abstract

Antibiotic resistance in bacterial pathogens is a growing problem for both human and veterinary medicine. Mobile genetic elements (MGEs) such as plasmids, transposons, and integrons enable the spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) among bacteria, and the overuse of antibiotics drives this process by providing the selection pressure for resistance genes to establish and persist in bacterial populations. Because bacteria, MGEs, and resistance genes can readily spread between different ecological compartments (e.g. soil, plants, animals, humans, wastewater), a “One Health” approach is needed to combat this problem. The equine hindgut is an understudied but potentially significant reservoir of ARGs and MGEs, since horses have close contact with humans, their manure is used in agriculture, they have a dense microbiome of both bacteria and fungi, and many antimicrobials used for equine treatment are also used in human medicine. Here, we collate information to date about resistance genes, plasmids, and class 1 integrons from equine-derived bacteria, we discuss why the equine hindgut deserves increased attention as a potential reservoir of ARGs, and we suggest ways to minimize the selection for ARGs in horses, in order to prevent their spread to the wider community.

摘要

细菌病原体的抗生素耐药性是人类医学和兽医学都面临的日益严重的问题。质粒、转座子和整合子等移动遗传元件 (MGE) 使抗生素抗性基因 (ARG) 在细菌中传播，而抗生素的过度使用通过为抗性基因提供选择压力来推动这一过程，从而在细菌种群中建立和持续存在. 因为细菌、MGE 和抗性基因可以很容易地在不同的生态区室（例如土壤、植物、动物、人类、废水）之间传播，所以需要一种“同一个健康”的方法来解决这个问题。马的后肠是 ARGs 和 MGEs 的一个未被充分研究但潜在重要的储存库，因为马与人类密切接触，它们的粪便用于农业，它们具有密集的细菌和真菌微生物群，许多用于治疗马匹的抗菌素也用于人类医学。在这里，我们整理了迄今为止关于来自马源细菌的抗性基因、质粒和 1 类整合子的信息，我们讨论了为什么马后肠作为 ARG 的潜在储存库值得更多关注，我们提出了尽量减少对 ARG 选择的方法马，以防止它们传播到更广泛的社区。