What is it about?
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a mechanism where bacteria share their genes among them. Some antimicrobial resistance genes move simultaneously between bacteria using HGT; but some not. This paper statistically demonstrates which antimicrobial resistance genes are likely moving together.
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Why is it important?
We argue a special attention is necessary when risk factor studies are applied to investigating factors associated with the presence of a certain antimicrobial resistance phenotype. We know a misclassification of outcome causes various bias in epidemiology; but we may not pay enough attention when we use a resistance phenotype as an outcome. Biological literature know that a same phenotype can be given by different genes. That is, what we see as the same thing (i.e. same phenotype) consist of different phenomenon (i.e. different resistance genes). Each gene gets selected for different reasons (i.e. risk factors); HGT magnifies this because all genes that move together can be selected if one of the genes gets selected. Should these be true, concluded associations between risk factors and the presence of resistance phenotype may be heavily biased.
Perspectives
Risk factor analyses on antimicrobial resistance are far complex - both HGT and the presence of multiple resistance genes conferring the same phenotype are likely to confound many of previous findings. I suggest, at least, risk factors be investigated on a resistance gene level, rather than a phenotypic level.
Arata Hidano
Massey University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Unraveling Antimicrobial Resistance Genes and Phenotype Patterns among Enterococcus faecalis Isolated from Retail Chicken Products in Japan, PLoS ONE, March 2015, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0121189.
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