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Antibiotic resistance genes may be present in infant gut microbiota
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DENVER — Four novel antibiotic resistance genes were found in the gut microflora from stool samples from a cohort of children younger than 19 years, according to findings presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies' Annual Meeting 2011, held here.
Aimee M. Moore, MD, clinical fellow in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at St. Louis Children’s Hospital Division of Newborn Medicine at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, noted that all libraries of sequenced samples yielded clones resistant to eight to 13 agents regardless of donor age.
“Twenty-five percent of the study population was younger than 12 months,” Moore said. We were equally likely to find betalactam resistance in an infant as in a teenager. Age was not a factor in this resistance.”
The researchers extracted genomic DNA from 32 frozen stool samples from 22 healthy children aged 0 to 19 years. The DNA was transformed into Escherichia coli to create a metagenomic library, according to the results.
“Sequencing revealed known and novel resistance genes,” Moore said. “We found four entirely novel genes with no resemblance to known resistance genes.”
Moore also noted that resistance genes were present in multiple screens from the same donor.
The hypothesis of the study was that resistance genes are present early in life and then change over time. “The genetic diversity of the human gut flora may be underestimated by traditional analytic methods,” Moore said.
“Gastrointestinal flora have interaction with environment and are readily accessible to human pathogens,” she said. She noted that microflora in the infant is determined by microflora in the mother. “We were hoping to provide new insight into the diversity of the resistome early in life.”
Participants had no diarrhea and no recent use of quinolones. The samples were screened against 15 antibiotics. The researchers looked at microbiota, the microbiome and the antibiotic resistome.
“It is important to note that these species do not have to evolve on their own,” Moore said. “Whatever is present in the maternal microbiota will likely be present in the neonatal microbiota. The result we observed — that no individual was without resistance genes — may reflect this hypothesis.”
Disclosure: Dr. Moore reported no conflicts of interest.
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