Extensive screening reveals previously undiscovered aminoglycoside resistance genes in human pathogens

ABSTRACT

Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to human health, caused in part by pathogens accumulating antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) through horizontal gene transfer. New ARGs are typically not recognized until they have become widely disseminated, which limits our ability to reduce their spread. In this study, we use large-scale computational screening of bacterial genomes to identify previously undiscovered mobile ARGs in pathogens. From ~1 million genomes, we predict 1,071,815 genes encoding 34,053 unique aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes (AMEs). These cluster into 7,612 families (