Antibiotic-resistant infections are a threat to global public health,
food safety and an economic burden. To prevent these infections, it is
critical to understand how antibiotic-resistant bacteria and their genes
are transmitted from both meat and plant-foods. Researchers have now
shown how plant-foods serve as vehicles for transmitting antibiotic
resistance to the gut microbiome. The research is presented at ASM
Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that of
the 2 million antibiotic-resistant infections per year in the U.S., 20
percent are linked to agriculture. This estimate is based on patients
who directly acquire antibiotic-resistant superbugs from eating meat.
Little has been done to determine how eating plants contributes to the
spread of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs.”
“Our findings highlight the importance of tackling foodborne
antibiotic-resistance from a complete food chain perspective that
includes plant-foods in addition to meat,” said Marlène Maeusli, PhD
candidate at Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern
California, who is the lead author on the study.
Spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs from plants to humans is
different from outbreaks of diarrheal illnesses caused immediately after
eating contaminated vegetables. Superbugs can asymptomatically hide in
(or “colonize”) the intestines for months or even years, when they then
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infection.
The researchers developed a novel, lettuce-mouse model system that does
not cause immediate illness to mimic consumption of superbugs with
plant-foods. They grew lettuce, exposed the lettuce to
antibiotic-resistant E. coli, fed it to the mice and analyzed their fecal samples over time.
“We found differences in the ability of bacteria to silently colonize
the gut after ingestion, depending on a variety of host and bacterial
factors,” said Maeusli. “We mimicked antibiotic and antacid treatments,
as both could affect the ability of superbugs to survive passage from
the stomach to the intestines.”
Exposure to one type of antibiotic did not increase the ability of
superbugs to hide in the mouse intestines, whereas a second antibiotic
resulted in stable gut colonization after ingestion. Ingestion of
bacteria with food also changed colonization, as did administering an
antacid before ingesting the bacteria.
“We continue to seek the plant characteristics and host factors that
result in key microbial community shifts in the gut that put us at risk
for colonization and those that prevent it,” said Maeusli. “The
environment and human health – in this context via agriculture and
microbiomes – are inextricably linked.”
Is Consumption Of Anti-Biotic Resistant Superbugs On Plants A Hidden Danger?
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