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Updated: Jan 19, 2026
Using Single-Worm Data to Quantify Heterogeneity in Caenorhabditis elegans-Bacterial Interactions
Published on: July 22, 2022
Within-host heterogeneity and flexibility of mcr-1 transmission in chicken gut
Xing-Ping Li1, Ruan-Yang Sun2, Jia-Qi Song2
1National Risk Assessment Laboratory for Antimicrobial Resistance of Animal Original Bacteria, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, P. R. China; College of Veterinary Medicine, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, P. R. China; Department of Animal Science, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA.
Objectives:
To characterize the colistin-resistant bacterial population in the gut and assess diversity of mcr-1 transmission within a single individual.
Methods:
Large numbers of isolates (>100 colonies/chicken cecum sample) were collected from nine randomly selected mcr-1-positive chickens in China and used for comprehensive microbiological, molecular and comparative genomics analyses.
Results:
Of 1273 colonies, 968 were mcr-1 positive (962 Escherichia coli, two Escherichia fergusonii, two Klebsiella pneumoniae and two Klebsiella quasipneumoniae). One to six colistin-resistant species and three to 10 E. coli pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) clusters could be identified from each sample. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) analysis of the representative E. coli strains revealed three to nine sequence types observed in a single chicken host. The mcr-1 genes are located in either chromosomes or plasmids of different types, including IncI2 (n=30), IncHI2 (n=14), IncX4 (n=4), p0111(n=2) and IncHI1(n=1). Strikingly, in single cecum samples, one to five Inc type plasmids harbouring mcr-1 could be identified. Great diversity was also observed for the same IncI2 plasmid within a single chicken host. In addition, up to eight genetic contexts of the mcr-1 gene occurred within a single chicken.
Conclusions:
There is extensive heterogeneity and flexibility of mcr-1 transmission in chicken gut due to bacterial species differences, distant clonal relatedness of isolates, many types and variations of mcr-positive plasmids, and the flexible genetic context of the mcr-1 gene. These compelling findings indicate that the gut is a 'melting pot' for active horizontal transfer of the mcr-1 gene.
