Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Sequence type diversity amongst antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains is lower than amongst antibiotic-susceptible strains

Anjani Pradhananga, Lorena Benitez-Rivera, Candace Clark, Kaho Tisthammer, Pleuni Simone Pennings
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.23.517742
Anjani Pradhananga
#San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Lorena Benitez-Rivera
#San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Candace Clark
#San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Kaho Tisthammer
$University of California Davis, Davis, California
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Pleuni Simone Pennings
#San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: pennings@sfsu.edu
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Data/Code
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

The increasing number of antibiotic resistant bacterial infections is a global threat to human health. Antibiotic resistant bacterial strains generally evolve from susceptible strains by either horizontal gene transfer or chromosomal mutations. After evolving within a host, such resistant strains can be transmitted to other hosts and increase in frequency in the population at large. Population genetic theory postulates that the increase in frequency of an adaptive trait can lead to signatures of selective sweeps. One would thus expect to observe reduced genetic diversity amongst that part of the population that carries the adaptive trait. Specifically, if the evolution of new resistant strains is rare, it is expected that resistant strains represent only a subset of the diversity of susceptible strains. It is currently unknown if diversity of resistant strains is indeed lower than diversity of susceptible strains when considering antibiotic resistance. Here we show that in several bacterial species in several different datasets, sequence-type diversity amongst antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains is indeed lower than amongst antibiotic-susceptible strains in most cases. We re-analysed eight existing clinical datasets with Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecium samples. These datasets consisted of 53 - 1094 patient samples, with multi-locus sequence types and antibiotic resistance phenotypes for 3 - 19 different antibiotics. Out of 59 comparisons, we found that resistant strains were significantly less diverse than susceptible strains in 51 cases (86%). In addition, we show that sequence-type diversity of antibiotic-resistant strains is lower if resistance is rare, compared to when resistance is common, which is consistent with rare resistance being due to fewer evolutionary origins. Our results show that for several different bacterial species, we observe reduced diversity of resistant strains, which is consistent with the evolution of resistance driven by selective sweeps stemming from a limited number of evolutionary origins. In future studies, more detailed analysis of such sweep signatures is warranted.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • https://github.com/AntibioticResistance/Antibiotic_Resistance_Data_Analysis.git

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted November 24, 2022.
Download PDF
Data/Code
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Sequence type diversity amongst antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains is lower than amongst antibiotic-susceptible strains
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Sequence type diversity amongst antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains is lower than amongst antibiotic-susceptible strains
Anjani Pradhananga, Lorena Benitez-Rivera, Candace Clark, Kaho Tisthammer, Pleuni Simone Pennings
bioRxiv 2022.11.23.517742; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.23.517742
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Sequence type diversity amongst antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains is lower than amongst antibiotic-susceptible strains
Anjani Pradhananga, Lorena Benitez-Rivera, Candace Clark, Kaho Tisthammer, Pleuni Simone Pennings
bioRxiv 2022.11.23.517742; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.23.517742

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Evolutionary Biology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4230)
  • Biochemistry (9118)
  • Bioengineering (6764)
  • Bioinformatics (23960)
  • Biophysics (12108)
  • Cancer Biology (9508)
  • Cell Biology (13748)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7621)
  • Ecology (11673)
  • Epidemiology (2066)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15487)
  • Genetics (10625)
  • Genomics (14307)
  • Immunology (9473)
  • Microbiology (22811)
  • Molecular Biology (9083)
  • Neuroscience (48906)
  • Paleontology (355)
  • Pathology (1480)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2566)
  • Physiology (3837)
  • Plant Biology (8320)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1468)
  • Synthetic Biology (2294)
  • Systems Biology (6176)
  • Zoology (1298)