Mediated Antibiotic Resistance in Bifidobacterium Longum Subsp. Longum
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Ann Microbiol (2015) 65:1985–1991 DOI 10.1007/s13213-015-1036-y ORIGINAL ARTICLE Detection of erm(X)-mediated antibiotic resistance in Bifidobacterium longum subsp.longum Cheng Luo & Xiaomin Hang & Xianglong Liu & Min Zhang & Xu Yang & Hong Yang Received: 2 October 2014 /Accepted: 7 January 2015 /Published online: 18 January 2015 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg and the University of Milan 2015 Abstract Forty-six strains from a collection of human Introduction bifidobacteria stored in our lab, each belonging to Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum species and Bifidobacteria are Gram-positive, bifid-shaped anaerobes that displaying unique Multilocus sequencing typing (MLST) pro- constitute a major group of human and animal gastrointestinal files, were chosen to assess an antibiotic resistance pattern. microbiota and are usually used as probiotics for their health- Three B. longum strains were found to be macrolide- promoting effects. Given their long and safe history of appli- lincosamide-streptogramin B (MLS)-resistant; erm(X) deter- cation, bifidobacteria have acquired the status of “generally minants were detected in genomic DNA, and two acquired regarded as safe” (GRAS). However, they might play a role in erm(X) determinants by Tn5432 transposition. A complete the transfer of antibiotic-resistant determinants to pathogenic sequence of Tn5432 in the bifidobacteria genome was obtain- and opportunistic bacteria, as the resistance gene reservoir ed for the first time. The transposon Tn5432 in the hypothesis suggests (Salyers et al. 2004). Horizontal gene Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum SQS4-63 genome transfer events naturally occur between viable microorgan- was located between the NTP pyrophosphatase and pyruvate isms in an open environment such as the gastrointestinal tract, kinase genes, and the insertion created an 8 bp duplication of and acquired resistance mediated by added genes is consid- the target sequence (GATAACGA). ered to have a high potential for lateral spread (van Reenen and Dicks 2011). The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) requires, as part of its Qualified Presumption of Keywords erm(X) . Tn5432 . Human bifidobacteria . Safety (QPS) approach, that bifidobacteria used as probiotics Horizontal gene transfer should not contain any acquired antibiotic resistant determi- nants (EFSA 2012). China has become the world’s top antibiotics consuming country, with an annual per-capita consumption of antibiotics at 138 g (Xiao 2008). Excess amounts of antibiotics are applied in medical treatments or used as animal growth pro- moters, which can lead to antimicrobial selection pressure and increased rates of resistant microbes in human- or animal- Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article associated microbiota, such as the gastrointestinal microbiota. (doi:10.1007/s13213-015-1036-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Bifidobacterial isolates from human sources face great risk for safety use as feed additives and their antibiotic resistance : : : : * C. Luo X. Liu M. Zhang X. Yang H. Yang ( ) pattern must be assessed. State Key Laboratory of Microbial metabolism, and School of Life Science & Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Antibiotic-resistant determinants detected in bifidobacteria Dongchuan Rd., Shanghai 200240, People’s Republic of China are relatively scarce and limited to tetracycline and macrolide e-mail: [email protected] antibiotics, as Gueimonde et al. (2013) reviewed. The erm(X) gene encodes an Erm(X) protein of 284 amino acids which X. Hang : M. Zhang Institute of Bio-medicine, Shanghai Jiao Da Onlly Company specifically methylate nucleotide A2058 in the 23S rRNA of Limited, Shanghai 200233, People’s Republic of China the 50S ribosomal subunit, thus protecting bacteria from MLS 1986 Ann Microbiol (2015) 65:1985–1991 antibiotics (Roberts 2008). The erm(X) gene was detected in where growth was inhibited along the inhibition ellipse (for Bifidobacterium thermophilum and Bifidobacterium animalis tetracycline, erythromycin, and clindamycin, the MIC was subsp. lactis isolates from animal sources and the antibiotic read at the point where growth was inhibited by 80 %). determinant was borne by transposon Tn5432 (van Hoek et al. Three independent replicates were conducted for each 2008). However, no genes coding for MLS resistance have experiment. been detected in human bifidobacteria. A complete sequence of Tn5432 in the bifidobacteria genome has not been obtain- DNA isolation and PCR detection of erm determinants ed, and the transposon target sites remain to be determined. Genomic DNA isolation was achieved using the MiniBEST Bacteria Genomic DNA Extraction Kit (TaKaRa, Dalian, Materials and methods China) according to the manufacturer’s instructions with mod- ifications in cell lysis. Cell lysis was achieved by mechanical Bifidobacterial strains and MLST lysis with the Mini-Beadbeater™ (Biospec, Bartlesville, OK, USA) and glass beads (Sigma, St. Louis, MO, USA) for 3 min A total of 48 B. longum strains were investigated in this study, at maximum speed at 4 °C. Detection of MLS-resistant erm including one type strain, one commercial strain, and 46 determinants was performed by PCR assays. Four primer pairs strains. Each was defined an individual strain by MLST were employed, and the primer pairs for erm(B) and erm(X) analyses from a collection of ∼300 bifidobacteria strains iso- were obtained from Jensen et al. (1999) and van Hoek et al. lated from human feces as candidates for probiotics. Among (2008), respectively, while the other two primer pairs for these 46 strains, 32 of them were isolated from fecal samples erm(A) and erm(E) were designed in this work, respectively, of healthy children aged 4 to 5 years in 2010 and 14 were based on the sequences of Staphylococcus aureus subsp. isolates from the feces of healthy adults aged 18 to 22 years in aureus MRSA252 (GenBank: BX571856.1) and 2012 (Table 2). All strains were identified to species level by Saccharopolyspora erythraea NRRL 2338 (GenBank: partial 16S rDNA sequencing and to strain level by MLST M11200.1) using Primer3web (Ver. 4.0.0 http://primer3.ut. analyses. Bifidobacterial strains were routinely grown anaer- ee/cgi-bin/primer3/primer3web_results.cgi). obically at 37 °C in MRS+cys broth (MRS broth supplement- ed with 0.5 g/L l-cysteine-HCl) pH 6.0. Self-formed adaptor PCR (SEFA PCR) Seven housekeeping genes, clpC, dnaG, dnaJ, fusA, gyrB, purF,andrpoB, were chosen for MLST analyses according to An attempt was made to obtain flanking regions of erm the method described by Ventura et al. (2006) and Makino determinants by SEFA PCR (Wang et al. 2007). PCR ampli- et al. (2011). Sequences of the clpC, dnaG, dnaJ, fusA, gyrB, fication of the downstream region of erm(X) was performed purF, and rpoB genes were converted into allelic profiles using three gene-specific primers, ermXF_SP1, ermXF_SP2, assigning a unique ID number to each allele, and the allelic and ermXF_SP3 (Table 1), and PCR amplification of the profiles at the seven loci were then used to classify bacterial upstream region of erm(X) was performed using three gene- isolates into sequence types (STs). specific primers, ermXR_SP1, ermXR_SP2, and ermXR_SP3 (Table 1). The primers for SEFA PCR were designed based on Antibiotic susceptibility testing the sequence of erm(X) amplified in this work. SEFA PCR was conducted in accordance with the manufacturer’sinstruc- Susceptibility of the 48 bifidobacterial strains to tetracycline, tions (Wang et al. 2007), and the amplified PCR products were erythromycin, clindamycin, chloramphenicol, ampicillin, and subsequently gel-purified and cloned using the MiniBEST vancomycin was evaluated using the Etest method as Huys Agarose Gel DNA Extraction Kit (TaKaRa, Dalian, China), et al. (2010) described. For inoculum preparation, colonies pMD®18-T Vector (TaKaRa, Dalian, China), and Trans 5α from cultures grown on MRS+cys agar for 2 days were Chemically Competent Cell (TransGen, Beijing, China), re- suspended in MRS+cys broth to cell density corresponding spectively, according to the kit protocols. All sequencing was to McFarland 1 standard or a spectrophotometric equivalent performed by BGI (Shenzhen, China). (3×108 CFU/mL). The standardized inoculum was spread evenly on MRS+cys agar using a sterile cotton swab. Etest Sequence analysis strips (bioMérieux, Marcy-l’Étoile, France), with preformed antimicrobial gradients in the test range from 0.016 to 256 mg/ Nucleotide sequences were assembled using the Vector NTI L, were placed on the air-dried agar surface. Inoculated plates Advance® software package (Ver. 11.5.1, Invitrogen BV, were incubated under anaerobic conditions at 37 °C for 48 h. Breda, the Netherlands). The alignments of DNA sequences The minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) was defined as were performed at NCBI using blastn program (http://blast. the value corresponding to the first point on the Etest strip ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi). The conserved domains were Ann Microbiol (2015) 65:1985–1991 1987 Table 1 PCR primers used in the study Primer name Gene(s) targeted/SEFA PCR primer Sequence (5′–3′) Reference ermX_F erm(X) ATGTTGATTTCAGGTACCGC (van Hoek et al. 2008) ermX_R AGTCACCTGGAAGAGATCG ermA_F erm(A) AAGAAGCGGTAAACCCCTCT This work ermA_R CGCAAATCCCTTCTCAACGA ermB_F erm(B) CATTTAACGACGAAACTGGC (Jensen et al. 1999) ermB_R GGAACATCTGTGGTATGGCG ermE_F erm(E) GAACGCTACGAGTCGATG This work ermE_R CTCGGTTCGTTCTTCTGATC P3_F Tn5432 GAAACAACGTACGGAGC (Ross et al.