Objective
The widespread use of antibiotics has resulted in the rapid dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes amongst bacterial populations. Little is known about the natural reservoir for such resistance genes and how resistance is disseminated in non-clinical environments. The comprehensive survey of the prevalence, distribution, mobility and selection of antibiotic resistance genes within bacterial populations is the major objective of this proposed study. Three antibiotics, gentamicin, streptomycin and tetracycline will be used to select for phenotypic resistance in culturable populations. Published sequence data for resistance genes will be used as a data base for molecular studies to enable the design of probes and primers for PCR screening. The focus of the study will be on discrete genes responsible for antibiotic modification, efflux or ribosome protection. DNA will be extracted directly from all samples using standardized protocols and used for PCR screening to detect the most prevalent genes. Dominant PCR products will be sequenced and sequences compared to the database. This will provide optimized probes and primers for screening the cultured bacteria. In addition, a comprehensive study will be undertaken in the same samples to determine the presence of the actinomycetes responsible for production of the three antibiotics or closely related compounds. Again a phenotypic and genotypic approach will be taken.
The potential for transfer and evidence of mobility will be obtained by exogenous isolation of resistance genes on plasmids or tranposons in marked recipients, obviating the need for culture. The resulting transconjugants will be screened for key genes. Finally each participant will focus on a specific environment to investigate environmental impacts on resistance incidence and study the effects of selection pressure on its prevalence and transfer.
The study will provide a better understanding of prevalence and circulation of key antibiotic resistance genes and their natural reservoirs. This data will be essential for regulating the safe use of antibiotic resistance genes as markers in recombinant organisms released into the environment. In addition to improving our understanding of how resistance genes evolve and understanding the ecology of antibiotic production.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsDNA
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecology
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsantibiotics
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug resistanceantibiotic resistance
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Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
COVENTRY
United Kingdom