Diminution of the gut resistome after a gut microbiota-targeted dietary intervention in obese children

• DOI: 10.1038/srep24030
• Publication Date: 2016-04-05T09:48:36Z
• Authors: Guojun Wu; Chenhong Zhang; Jing Wang; Feng Zhang; Ruirui Wang; Jian Shen; Linghua Wang; Xiaoyan Pang; Xiaojun Zhang; Liping Zhao; Menghui Zhang
• Keywords: Escherichia; 0301 basic medicine; 2. Zero hunger; China; Pediatric Obesity; Enterobacter; Article; Anti-Bacterial Agents; Diet; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Gastrointestinal Tract; 03 medical and health sciences; Genes, Bacterial; Klebsiella; Databases, Genetic; Drug Resistance, Bacterial; Humans; Medicine, Chinese Traditional; Child

AbstractThe gut microbiome represents an important reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Effective methods are urgently needed for managing the gut resistome to fight against the antibiotic resistance threat. In this study, we show that a gut microbiota-targeted dietary intervention, which shifts the dominant fermentation of gut bacteria from protein to carbohydrate, significantly diminished the gut resistome and alleviated metabolic syndrome in obese children. Of the non-redundant metagenomic gene catalog of ~2 × 106 microbial genes, 399 ARGs were identified in 131 gene types and conferred resistance to 47 antibiotics. Both the richness and diversity of the gut resistome were significantly reduced after the intervention. A total of 201 of the 399 ARGs were carried in 120 co-abundance gene groups (CAGs) directly binned from the gene catalog across both pre-and post-intervention samples. The intervention significantly reduced several CAGs in Klebsiella, Enterobacter and Escherichia, which were the major hubs for multiple resistance gene types. Thus, dietary intervention may become a potentially effective method for diminishing the gut resistome.