A global baseline for qPCR-determined antimicrobial resistance gene prevalence across environments

• The environment is an important component in the emergence and transmission of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Despite that, little effort has been made to monitor AMR outside of clinical and veterinary settings. Partially, this is caused by a lack of comprehensive reference data for the vast majority of environments. To enable monitoring to detect deviations from the normal background resistance levels in the environment, it is necessary to establish a baseline of AMR in a variety of settings. In an attempt to establish this baseline level, we here performed a comprehensive literature survey, identifying 150 scientific papers containing relevant qPCR data on antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) in environments associated with potential routes for AMR dissemination. The collected data included 1594 samples distributed across 30 different countries and 12 sample types, in a time span from 2001 to 2020. We found that for most ARGs, the typically reported abundances in human impacted environments fell in an interval from 10-5 to 10-3 copies per 16S rRNA, roughly corresponding to one ARG copy in a thousand bacteria. Altogether these data represent a comprehensive overview of the occurrence and levels of ARGs in different environments, providing background data for risk assessment models within current and future AMR monitoring frameworks.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Evolutionsbiologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Evolutionary Biology (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Infektionsmedicin (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Infectious Medicine (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Mikrobiologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Microbiology (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Medicinska och farmaceutiska grundvetenskaper -- Mikrobiologi inom det medicinska området (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Basic Medicine -- Microbiology in the medical area (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

AMR

Surveillance

Antibiotic resistance

qPCR

Monitoring

Antibiotic resistance

AMR

qPCR

Monitoring

Surveillance

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)