Use of antibiotics in aquaculture is rampant in some regions. A previous study covering four Asian countries indicated rampant use of in-feed antibiotics as antibiotic growth promoter (AGP).
This article published recently in Nature journal looked at the level of long-term microbial risks associated with the oral administration of a widely used antibiotic, florfenicol.
Researchers treated the fish with florfenicol and tracked changes in their gut microbiome, resistome (collection of antibiotic resistance genes), and mobilome (mobile genetic elements).
They found that even after the legally mandated withdrawal period, the fish retained elevated levels of resistance genes and mobile elements compared to untreated controls.
Notably, integrons and a composite transposon carrying the floR gene were key contributors to the spread of resistance during treatment, and their effects persisted well beyond the withdrawal timeline.
The study also revealed that prolonged antibiotic exposure led to the enrichment of diverse plasmids carrying resistance genes, some of which were found in potential pathogens. Nearly half of these enriched pathogens harbored resistance genes identical to those found on plasmids, suggesting active horizontal gene transfer.
These findings challenge the assumption that current withdrawal periods are sufficient to mitigate microbial risks and highlight the need for revised guidelines that account for the ecological persistence of resistance traits.
Aquaculture practices must consider not just drug clearance from tissues, but also the long-term impacts on microbial ecology and public health.
#AGP #AMR #microbiome #aquaculture #pathogens #aquafeed
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Find the article in the following link: https://lnkd.in/gqsRJUcf
