Pre- and postantibiotic epoch: The historical spread of antimicrobial resistance

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cazares, Adrian; Figueroa, Wendy; Cazares, Daniel; Lima, Leandro; Turnbull, Jake D.; McGregor, Hannah; Dicks, Jo; Alexander, Sarah; Iqbal, Zamin; Thomson, Nicholas R.
• 署名单位: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute; European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL); European Bioinformatics Institute; University of Cambridge; University of Oxford; UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA); University of Bath; University of London; London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.adr1522
• 发表日期: 2025-12-04
• 页码: eadr1522
• 关键词: PLASMIDS; protein; dataset

摘要

Plasmids are now the primary vectors of antimicrobial resistance, but our understanding of how human industrialization of antibiotics influenced their evolution is limited by a paucity of data predating the antibiotic era (PAE). By investigating plasmids from clinically relevant bacteria sampled and isolated between 1917 and 1954 and comparing them with modern plasmids, we have captured more than 100 years of evolution. We show that although virtually all PAE plasmids were devoid of resistance genes and most never acquired them, a minority evolved to drive the global spread of resistance to first-line and last-resort antibiotics in Gram-negative bacteria. Modern plasmids have evolved through complex microevolution and fusion events into a distinct group of highly recombinogenic, multireplicon, self-transmissible plasmids that now pose the highest risk to resistance dissemination and therefore to human health.