RT Journal Article
T1 Integron activity accelerates the evolution of antibiotic resistance
A1 Souque, Celia
A1 Escudero García-Calderón, José Antonio
A1 MacLean, Craig
AB Mobile integrons are widespread genetic platforms that allow bacteria to modulate the expression of antibiotic resistance cassettes by shuffling their position from a common promoter. Antibiotic stress induces the expression of an integrase that excises and integrates cassettes, and this unique recombination and expression system is thought to allow bacteria to ‘evolve on demand’ in response to antibiotic pressure. To test this hypothesis, we inserted a custom three-cassette integron into Pseudomonas aeruginosa and used experimental evolution to measure the impact of integrase activity on adaptation to gentamicin. Crucially, integrase activity accelerated evolution by increasing the expression of a gentamicin resistance cassette through duplications and by eliminating redundant cassettes. Importantly, we found no evidence of deleterious off-target effects of integrase activity. In summary, integrons accelerate resistance evolution by rapidly generating combinatorial variation in cassette composition while maintaining genomic integrity.
PB eLife Sciences Publications,
SN 2050-084X
YR 2021
FD 2021-02-26
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/6866
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/6866
LA eng
NO Unión Europea. Horizonte 2020
NO Wellcome Trust
NO Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN)
NO Comunidad de Madrid
DS Docta Complutense
RD 30 abr 2024