摘要
      对多种抗菌药物产生耐药性的致病菌株的出现是现代医疗保健中的一个紧迫问题。抗微生物耐药性主要通过水平基因转移传播耐药性决定因素来介导。一些耐药性基因的传播已经有了很好的记录，但很少有研究分析支撑抗微生物耐药性基因传播的模式。分析质粒携带的抗微生物抗性基因相对于其宿主基因组的%GC含量%GC含量提供了一种有效检测和量化抗微生物耐药性基因传播的方法。在这项工作中，我们自动化了%GC含量分析，以对公开可用的质粒序列中的已知抗微生物耐药性基因进行全面分析。我们发现抗微生物耐药性基因的传播程度主要取决于耐药性机制。我们的分析将结合质粒确定为主要传播载体，并表明最广泛传播的基因是从单一基因组背景传播的。我们发现，抗微生物药物的耐药性传播情况差异很大，通常反映了管理措施。我们的研究结果表明，%GC含量分析是一种强大、直观和可扩展的方法，可以使用公开的序列数据监测耐药性决定因素的传播。
Abstract
The emergence of pathogenic strains resistant to multiple antimicrobials is a pressing problem in modern healthcare. Antimicrobial resistance is mediated primarily by dissemination of resistance determinants via horizontal gene transfer. The dissemination of some resistance genes has been well documented, but few studies have analyzed the patterns underpinning the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance genes. Analyzing the %GC content of plasmid-borne antimicrobial resistance genes relative to their host genome %GC content provides a means to efficiently detect and quantify dissemination of antimicrobial resistance genes. In this work we automate %GC content analysis to perform a comprehensive analysis of known antimicrobial resistance genes in publicly available plasmid sequences. We find that the degree to which antimicrobial resistance genes are disseminated depends primarily on the resistance mechanism. Our analysis identifies conjugative plasmids as primary dissemination vectors and indicates that most broadly disseminated genes have spread from single genomic backgrounds. We show that resistance dissemination profiles vary greatly among antimicrobials, oftentimes reflecting stewardship measures. Our findings establish %GC content analysis as a powerful, intuitive and scalable method to monitor the dissemination of resistance determinants using publicly available sequence data.

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6382/12/2/281