Analysis of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Intestinal Microbiota in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

This paper presents the study results of the representation relative level and drug resistance genes composition of intestinal microbiota in COPD patients with subsequent evaluation of the antibiotic therapy courses frequency effect on the risk of development of resistance to antibiotics used in the respiratory infections treatment. In the study 52 COPD patients and 96 healthy volunteers fecal metagenome were sequenced and analyzed. All of the patients at the time of inclusion in the study were characterized by a stable COPD with a diagnosis history for 12 months and more, the lack of exacerbation episodes during the previous 4 weeks, and antibiotic therapy was not carried out for 12 weeks prior to inclusion. For identification of drug resistance genes amino acid sequence of the antibiotic resistance gene database Antibiotic Resistance Database were used. In result of metagenomic analysis of COPD patients and healthy volunteers stool samples with revealed considerable diversity set of genes resistant to antibiotics. Intestinal microbiota in patients with COPD is characterized by a high total relative representation of antibiotic resistance gene in comparison with samples of the comparison group. The highest level of representation of the antibiotic resistance genes in the intestinal microbiota in COPD patients was identified for families of macrolide, beta-lactam (including cephalosporins) and fluoroquinolone antibiotics, to a lesser extent for vancomycin, lincosamides, aminoglycosides and tetracycline.