Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Dec 1:13:1008870.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.1008870. eCollection 2022.

Aeromonas species isolated from aquatic organisms, insects, chicken, and humans in India show similar antimicrobial resistance profiles

Saurabh Dubey  1 , Eirill Ager-Wick  1 , Jitendra Kumar  2 , Indrani Karunasagar  3 , Iddya Karunasagar  3 , Bo Peng  4 , Øystein Evensen  5 , Henning Sørum  5 , Hetron M Munang'andu  1   6
Affiliations

Aeromonas species isolated from aquatic organisms, insects, chicken, and humans in India show similar antimicrobial resistance profiles

Saurabh Dubey et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Aeromonas species are Gram-negative bacteria that infect various living organisms and are ubiquitously found in different aquatic environments. In this study, we used whole genome sequencing (WGS) to identify and compare the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes, integrons, transposases and plasmids found in Aeromonas hydrophila, Aeromonas caviae and Aeromonas veronii isolated from Indian major carp (Catla catla), Indian carp (Labeo rohita), catfish (Clarias batrachus) and Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) sampled in India. To gain a wider comparison, we included 11 whole genome sequences of Aeromonas spp. from different host species in India deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Our findings show that all 15 Aeromonas sequences examined had multiple AMR genes of which the Ambler classes B, C and D β-lactamase genes were the most dominant. The high similarity of AMR genes in the Aeromonas sequences obtained from different host species point to interspecies transmission of AMR genes. Our findings also show that all Aeromonas sequences examined encoded several multidrug efflux-pump proteins. As for genes linked to mobile genetic elements (MBE), only the class I integrase was detected from two fish isolates, while all transposases detected belonged to the insertion sequence (IS) family. Only seven of the 15 Aeromonas sequences examined had plasmids and none of the plasmids encoded AMR genes. In summary, our findings show that Aeromonas spp. isolated from different host species in India carry multiple AMR genes. Thus, we advocate that the control of AMR caused by Aeromonas spp. in India should be based on a One Health approach.

Keywords: Aeromonas; antimicrobials; beta lactam; integrase; plasmids; resistance; transposase genes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Pangenome analysis of 15 Aeromonas spp. isolated from different host species in India. Note that the 15 Aeromonas spp. are in four groups based on species. (i) Group comprises of Aeromonas veronii isolates and reference strain NZ_LS4883441.1 NCTC12244, (ii) Group 2 consists of a A. hydrophila and A. veronii isolate and reference strain NC_008570 Ah_ATCC7966, (iii) Group 3 consists of A. salmonicida isolates and reference strain NZ_LSGW01000001.1_As_ATCC33658, and (iv) Group 4 consists of A. hydrophila and A. dhakensis isolates together with the NZ_JAGDE01000001.1 Av_ATCC35624 reference strain.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Phylogenetic analysis of Ambler class B metallo-β-lactam (MBL) resistance genes from 13 Aeromonas spp. isolated from different host species in India.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Phylogenetic analysis of Ambler class C β-lactam resistance genes from 10 Aeromonas spp. isolated from different host species in India. The isolates were put in two groups. (i) Group 1 consists of blaAQU-2, cepS, blaMOX-7, and blaFOX-7 genes from A. hydrophila, A. veronii, and A. caviae isolated from different host species. Note that Strains SD/21–01 and F2S2/1 having the blaAQU-2 gene were put together while strains SD/21–05 and VBF557 having the cepS gene were also placed together. (ii) Group 2 consists of blaFOX-2, blaFOX-4 and blaFOX-5 genes from A. salmonicida isolates of which strains Y567 and Y527 having the blaFOX-2 gene were put together.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Phylogenetic analysis of D class β-lactam resistance genes from 15 Aeromonas spp. from different host species in India. (i) Group 1 consists of the blaOXA-12 gene from A. veronii isolates, (ii) Group 1 had the blaOXA-724 gene from A. veronii, and A. hydrophila isolates while (iii) Group 3 has the blaOXA-427 gene from A. caviae and A. salmonicida isolates.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Phylogenetic analysis of crp resistance genes detected from sequences of nine Aeromonas spp. isolated from different host species in India.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Circular maps of whole genome sequences of Aeromonas spp. isolated from four fish species in India. (A) Circular map of whole genome sequence of Aeromonas hydrophila strain SD21/21–05 (blue) isolated from Indian carp (Labeo rohita) showing the loci for the resistance genes (red), efflux pumps (green) and integrase (blue). The extended linear map shows the integrase intl1 linked to dfrA12, aadA2, QacEdelta 1 and sul1. Circular maps of the two plasmids detected are shown in pink. (B) Circular map of whole genome of A. veronii strain SD/21–04 isolated from Clarias batrachus showing the loci for resistance genes (red), efflux pumps (green), and transposases (blue). The linear map shows the transposases linked to the hypothetical protein, tet(E) efflux pump and TetR is the repressor of the tetracycline resistance element. Circular maps of the two plasmids are shown in pink. (C) Circular map of the A. caviae strain SD/21–11 isolated from Oreochromis niloticus showing positions of the resistance genes (red), integrase (blue) and efflux pumps (green) with the linear map showing the integrase intl1 linked to the ANT(3″)-IIa, cmlA1, ANT(3″)-IIa, QacEdelta 1 and sul1 genes. Circular map of the single plasmid is shown in red. (D) Circular map of A. hydrophila strain SD/21–01 isolated from Catla catla showing resistance genes (red) and efflux pump proteins (green). The extended linear map shows the multidrug complex OprM-MexB and RND pumps linked to the tetR gene.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Abdelsalam M., Ewiss M. Z., Khalefa H. S., Mahmoud M. A., Elgendy M. Y., Abdel-Moneam D. A. (2021). Coinfections of Aeromonas spp., enterococcus faecalis, and vibrio alginolyticus isolated from farmed Nile tilapia and African catfish in Egypt, with an emphasis on poor water quality. Microb. Pathog. 160:105213. doi: 10.1016/j.micpath.2021.105213 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Abraham T. J., Anwesha R., Julinta R. B., Singha J., Patil P. K. (2017). Efficacy of oxytetracycline and potentiated sulphonamide oral therapies against Aeromonas hydrophila infection in Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus. J. Coast. Life Med. 5, 371–374. doi: 10.12980/jclm.5.2017j7-89 - DOI
    1. Adamczuk M., Dziewit L. (2017). Genome-based insights into the resistome and mobilome of multidrug-resistant Aeromonas sp. ARM81 isolated from wastewater. Arch. Microbiol. 199:7. doi: 10.1007/s00203-016-1285-6 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Akinbowale O. L., Peng H., Grant P., Barton M. D. (2007). Antibiotic and heavy metal resistance in motile aeromonads and pseudomonads from rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) farms in Australia. Int. J. Antimicrob. Agents 30, 177–182. doi: 10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2007.03.012, PMID: - DOI - PubMed
    1. Alcock B. P., Raphenya A. R., Lau T. T., Tsang K. K., Bouchard M., Edalatmand A., et al. . (2020). CARD 2020: antibiotic resistome surveillance with the comprehensive antibiotic resistance database. Nucleic Acids Res. 48, D517–D525. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkz935, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed