WIDE VARIATION IN ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE PROTEINS IDENTIFIED BY FUNCTIONAL METAGE

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. Primary support for the subproject and the subproject's principal investigator may have been provided by other sources, including other NIH sources. The Total Cost listed for the subproject likely represents the estimated amount of Center infrastructure utilized by the subproject, not direct funding provided by the NCRR grant to the subproject or subproject staff. Most genes for antibiotic resistance present in soil microbes remain unexplored because most environmental microbes cannot be cultured. Only recently has the identification of these genes become feasible through the use of culture-independent methods. We screened a soil metagenomic DNA library in an Escherichia coli host for genes that can confer resistance to kanamycin, gentamicin, rifampin, trimethoprim, chloramphenicol, or tetracycline. The screen revealed 41 genes that encode novel protein variants of eight protein families, including aminoglycoside acetyltransferases, rifampin ADP-ribosyltransferases, dihydrofolate reductases, and transporters. Several proteins of the same family deviate considerably from each other, yet confer comparable resistance. For example, five dihydrofolate reductases sharing at most 44% amino acid sequence identity in pairwise comparisons were equivalent in conferring trimethoprim resistance. We identified variants of aminoglycoside acetyltransferases and transporters that differ in the specificity of the drugs for which they confer resistance. We also found wide variation in protein structure. Two forms of rifampin ADP-ribosyltransferases, one twice the size of the other, were similarly effective at conferring rifampin resistance, although the short form was expressed at much lower level. Functional metagenomic screening provides insight into the large variability in antibiotic resistance protein sequences, revealing divergent variants that preserve protein function.