10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
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Antibiotic Resistance Genes Spread via Exhaled Breath
YUNHAO ZHENG, Jing Li, Xinyue Li, Maosheng Yao, Peking University
Abstract Number: 1110 Working Group: Infectious Bioaerosol
Abstract Antibiotic Resistance Genes (ARGs) recently draw a global attention. The increasing usage of antibiotics drugs leads to the emerging of antibiotic resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs). In a previous study, Methicillin-resistant Stphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was detected from exhaled breath. Here, we further used the dBLueTech BioScreen device to collect the EBC samples from human subjects with respiratory tract diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) , upper respiratory tract infection(URTI), and healthy people. And then we screened relative abundances of 39 ARG subtypes resistant to 7 common classes of antibiotics including quinolones, β-lactams, and macrolides in the EBC samples. Besides, bacterial communities were also profiled using 16S gene sequencing on the Illumina MiSeq platform. Results showed that the relative abundances of ARGs in URTI patients were higher than those of COPD patients and healthy people. Resistance gene of qepA to quinolone was found to be the most abundant in the exhaled breath, followed by blaTEM to β-lactam. By combining with high throughput gene sequencing, we found that respiratory infections exhibited significant impacts on the structures of microbial communities in the respiratory system. The results from this work also indicated that these ARGs and pathogens could be emitted and transmitted through the exhaled breath, thus adding to additional risks of infectious disease transmission. These data also suggest that people, even in healthy state, are carriers and transmitters of ARGs, exhibiting far more influences than currently understood.