The spread of antibiotic resistance in bacteria-plasmid networks

抗菌素耐药性（AMR）正在上升到危险的高水平，威胁到我们治疗常见传染病的能力，从而引发全球健康危机。在人类治疗和农业中大量使用抗生素大大增加了耐药性的频率，在医院和环境的许多地方都发现了热点。质粒是一种可移动的遗传因子，在抗菌素耐药性的传播中起着至关重要的作用。它们可以携带对抗生素的抵抗力，并将其传递给细菌。抗生素使这种携带抗菌素耐药性的质粒对它们的细菌宿主有益。这可能会改变质粒与其宿主之间的共同进化动力学，导致质粒变得更加普遍，并与更多不同的细菌相关联。这从根本上改变了相互作用的细菌和质粒的网络结构，并可能增加新型抗生素耐药性在微生物群落中的传播。通过一系列使用简单和自然复杂微生物群落的实验，我将确定抗生素暴露对质粒及其细菌宿主的长期影响。我也将用新方法研究质粒和细菌之间的新兴网络。这项实验工作与理论方法相结合，将有助于预测抗生素压力对抗生素耐药性在微生物群落和病原体中传播的长期影响。这项工作将在埃克塞特大学与专家Alvaro San Millan（马德里）、Eva Top和Thibault Stalder（爱达荷）合作进行。

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is rising to dangerously high levels causing a global health crisis by threatening our ability to treat common infectious diseases. The intensive use of antibiotics for human treatment and in farming has dramatically increased the frequency of resistance with hotspots found in hospitals and many parts of the environment. Plasmids, mobile genetic elements, have a crucial role in spreading antimicrobial resistance. They can carry resistance against antibiotics and pass this on to bacteria. Antibiotics make such AMR carrying plasmids beneficial to their bacterial hosts. This is likely to change coevolutionary dynamics between plasmids and their hosts, resulting in plasmids becoming more prevalent and associated with a higher number of different bacteria. This fundamentally changes the network structure of interacting bacteria and plasmids and likely increases the spread of novel antibiotic resistance across microbial communities. With a series of experiments using simple and naturally complex microbial communities, I will determine the long-term impact of antibiotic exposure on plasmids and their bacterial hosts. I will also investigate emerging networks between plasmids and bacteria with novel methods. This experimental work, combined with theoretical approaches, will help predict the long-term impact of antibiotic pressure on the spread of antibiotic resistance across microbial communities and pathogens. The work will be conducted at the University of Exeter in collaboration with experts Alvaro San Millan (Madrid), Eva Top and Thibault Stalder (Idaho).