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. 2009 Dec;15(4):309-15.
doi: 10.1089/mdr.2009.0052.

Antibiotic resistance genes in the vaginal microbiota of primates not normally exposed to antibiotics

Robert T Jeters  1 , Angel J Rivera, Lisa M Boucek, Rebecca M Stumpf, Steve R Leigh, Abigail A Salyers
Affiliations

Antibiotic resistance genes in the vaginal microbiota of primates not normally exposed to antibiotics

Robert T Jeters et al. Microb Drug Resist. 2009 Dec.

Abstract

Previous studies of resistance gene ecology have focused primarily on populations such as hospital patients and farm animals that are regularly exposed to antibiotics. Also, these studies have tended to focus on numerically minor populations such as enterics or enterococci. We report here a cultivation-independent approach that allowed us to assess the presence of antibiotic resistance genes in the numerically predominant populations of the vaginal microbiota of two populations of primates that are seldom or never exposed to antibiotics: baboons and mangabeys. Most of these animals were part of a captive colony in Texas that is used for scientific studies of female physiology and physical anthropology topics. Samples from some wild baboons were also tested. Vaginal swab samples, obtained in connection with a study designed to define the normal microbiota of the female vaginal canal, were tested for the presence of two types of antibiotic resistance genes: tetracycline resistance (tet) genes and erythromycin resistance (erm) genes. These genes are frequently found in human isolates of the two types of bacteria that were a substantial part of the normal microbiota of primates (Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes). Since cultivation was not feasible, polymerase chain reaction and DNA sequencing were used to detect and characterize these resistance genes. The tet(M) and tet(W) genes were found most commonly, and the tet(Q) gene was found in over a third of the samples from baboons. The ermB and ermF genes were found only in a minority of the samples. The ermG gene was not found in any of the specimens tested. Polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that at least some tet(M) and tet(Q) genes were genetically linked to DNA from known conjugative transposons (CTns), Tn916 and CTnDOT. Our results raise questions about the extent to which extensive exposure to antibiotics is the only pressure necessary to maintain resistance genes in natural settings.

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Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Phylogenetic tree composed of sequences from primates used in this study and tet(M) sequences from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database. The number behind tet(M) indicates the sample number of the primate. The “c” denotes that it is a captive baboon. The “w” denotes that it is a wild baboon. The “m” denotes that it is a captive mangabey. The bar shows the length of the bar that corresponds to 1%. Asterisks indicate the tet(M) alleles that were linked to Tn916 in that baboon. The bootstrap values were computed with ClustalW, 100 repetitions. Only the significant bootstrap figures are shown. Confidence figures are shown only for branches that were significant. Figures for the other branches were less than 70% and were therefore not considered significant. To make the tree easier to read, only a few nonprimate sequences were included in this tree to provide a reference point for comparison, but most sequences in the databases clustered with these sequences.
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