The Peril and Promise of Integrons: Beyond Antibiotic Resistance

Integrons are bacterial genetic elements that can capture, rearrange, and express mobile gene cassettes. They are best known for their role in disseminating antibiotic-resistance genes among pathogens. Their ability to rapidly spread resistance phenotypes makes it important to consider what other integron-mediated traits might impact human health in the future, such as increased virulence, pathogenicity, or resistance to novel antimicrobial strategies. Exploring the functional diversity of cassettes and understanding their de novo creation will allow better pre-emptive management of bacterial growth, while also facilitating development of technologies that could harness integron activity. If we can control integrons and cassette formation, we could use integrons as a platform for enzyme discovery and to construct novel biochemical pathways, with applications in bioremediation or biosynthesis of industrial and therapeutic molecules. Integron activity thus holds both peril and promise for humans. Integrons are DNA elements that helped drive the global antibiotic-resistance crisis. They capture and express mobile genes known as cassettes.Their activity holds both peril and promise for humans.The peril is the next wave of integron-mediated traits: those beyond resistance. What other cassette-encoded traits might impact human health?Cassettes encoding virulence and novel resistance mechanisms can be recovered from environmental samples around the globe. Such cassettes should be accessible to integron-carrying pathogens anywhere on the planet.The promise of integrons lies in their potential use in biotechnology.Harnessing their ability for genetic rearrangement, and their diverse gene cassettes, could facilitate enzyme discovery, and the construction of novel biochemical pathways.