Functional Metagenomics as a Tool for Identification of New Antibiotic Resistance Genes from Natural Environments

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Débora Farage Knupp dos Santos ; Paula Istvan ; Betania Ferraz Quirino…
• 关键词：Antibiotic resistance genes ; Environment ; Functional metagenomics ; Resistome
• 刊名：Microbial Ecology
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：February 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：73
• 期：2
• 页码：479-491
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Biomedical and Life Sciences
• 刊物主题：Microbiology; Ecology; Microbial Ecology; Geoecology/Natural Processes; Nature Conservation; Water Quality/Water Pollution;
• 出版者：Springer US
• ISSN：1432-184X
• 卷排序：73

文摘

Antibiotic resistance has become a major concern for human and animal health, as therapeutic alternatives to treat multidrug-resistant microorganisms are rapidly dwindling. The problem is compounded by low investment in antibiotic research and lack of new effective antimicrobial drugs on the market. Exploring environmental antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) will help us to better understand bacterial resistance mechanisms, which may be the key to identifying new drug targets. Because most environment-associated microorganisms are not yet cultivable, culture-independent techniques are essential to determine which organisms are present in a given environmental sample and allow the assessment and utilization of the genetic wealth they represent. Metagenomics represents a powerful tool to achieve these goals using sequence-based and functional-based approaches. Functional metagenomic approaches are particularly well suited to the identification new ARGs from natural environments because, unlike sequence-based approaches, they do not require previous knowledge of these genes. This review discusses functional metagenomics-based ARG research and describes new possibilities for surveying the resistome in environmental samples.