摘要
      抗生素耐药性正在全球范围内传播，但主要的传播机制尚不完全清楚。在这里，我们报告了美国国家生物技术信息中心（NCBI）RefSeq质粒数据库中记录的偶联质粒中抗生素耐药性基因（ARG）的丰度在全球范围内不断增加，这可能是耐药性传播的关键因素。从2000年到2020年，质粒中ARG的丰度在全球范围内增加了10倍（从0.25到2.93个ARG拷贝/质粒），中低收入国家的增加更为明显。从NCBI RefSeq质粒数据库每年的bootstrap重采样证实了质粒携带ARGs的这种增加趋势。相关性分析的结果表明，如果抗生素消费量以目前的速度继续增长，到2030年，全球临床相关质粒的ARG丰度可能会增加2.7倍。从临床和环境中分离的临床相关的偶联质粒的高度序列相似性引起了人们对环境抗性组的担忧，该环境抗性组作为潜在的ARG维持库，有助于跨越这些生态边界的传播。
ABSTRACT
Antibiotic resistance is propagating worldwide, but the predominant dissemination mechanisms are not fully understood. Here, we report that antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) abundance in conjugative plasmids that are recorded in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) RefSeq plasmid database is increasing globally, which is likely a key factor in the propagation of resistance. ARG abundance in plasmids increased by 10-fold on a global scale from the year 2000 to the year 2020 (from 0.25 to 2.93 ARG copies/plasmid), with a more pronounced increase being observed in low-to-middle income countries. This increasing trend of plasmid-borne ARGs was corroborated by bootstrap resampling from each year of the NCBI RefSeq plasmid database. The results of a correlation analysis imply that if antibiotic consumption keeps growing at the current rates, a 2.7-fold global increase in the ARG abundance of clinically relevant plasmids may be reached by 2030. High sequence similarities of clinically relevant, conjugative plasmids that are isolated both from clinics and from the environment raise concerns about the environmental resistome serving as a potential ARG maintenance reservoir that facilitates transmission across these ecological boundaries.

https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/spectrum.04478-22