Community composition of bacteria isolated from Swiss banknotes varies depending on collection environment.

Humans interact constantly with surfaces and associated microbial communities in the environment. The factors shaping the composition of these communities are poorly understood: some proposed explanations emphasize the influence of local habitat conditions (niche-based explanations), while others point to geographic structure and the distance among sampled locations (dispersal-based explanations). However, the relative roles of these different drivers for microbial community assembly on human-associated surfaces are not clear. Here, we used a combination of sampling, sequencing (16S rRNA) and culturing to show that the composition of banknote-associated bacterial communities varies depending on the local collection environment. Using banknotes collected from various locations and types of shops across Switzerland, we found taxonomic diversity dominated by families such as Pseudomonadaceae and Staphylococcaceae, but with banknote samples from particular types of shops (especially butcher shops) having distinct community structure. By contrast, we found no evidence of geographic structure: similarity of community composition did not decrease with increasing distance among sampled locations. These results show that microbial communities associated with banknotes, one of the most commonly encountered and exchanged human-associated surfaces, can reflect the local environmental conditions (in this case, the type of shop), and the signal for this type of variation was stronger than that for geographic structure among the locations sampled here.

Evolution of honey resistance in experimental populations of bacteria depends on the type of honey and has no major side effects for antibiotic susceptibility.

With rising antibiotic resistance, alternative treatments for communicable diseases are increasingly relevant. One possible alternative for some types of infections is honey, used in wound care since before 2000 BCE and more recently in licensed, medical-grade products. However, it is unclear whether medical application of honey results in the evolution of bacterial honey resistance and whether this has collateral effects on other bacterial traits such as antibiotic resistance. Here, we used single-step screening assays and serial transfer at increasing concentrations to isolate honey-resistant mutants of Escherichia coli. We only detected bacteria with consistently increased resistance to the honey they evolved in for two of the four tested honey products, and the observed increases were small (maximum twofold increase in IC90). Genomic sequencing and experiments with single-gene knockouts showed a key mechanism by which bacteria increased their honey resistance was by mutating genes involved in detoxifying methylglyoxal, which contributes to the antibacterial activity of Leptospermum honeys. Crucially, we found no evidence that honey adaptation conferred cross-resistance or collateral sensitivity against nine antibiotics from six different classes. These results reveal constraints on bacterial adaptation to different types of honey, improving our ability to predict downstream consequences of wider honey application in medicine.

Associations between sensitivity to antibiotics, disinfectants and heavy metals in natural, clinical and laboratory isolates of Escherichia coli.

Bacteria in nature often encounter non-antibiotic antibacterials (NAAs), such as disinfectants and heavy metals, and they can evolve resistance via mechanisms that are also involved in antibiotic resistance. Understanding whether susceptibility to different types of antibacterials is non-randomly associated across natural and clinical bacteria is therefore important for predicting the spread of resistance, yet there is no consensus about the extent of such associations or underlying mechanisms. We tested for associations between susceptibility phenotypes of 93 natural and clinical Escherichia coli isolates to various NAAs and antibiotics. Across all compound combinations, we detected a small number of non-random associations, including a trio of positive associations among chloramphenicol, triclosan and benzalkonium chloride. We investigated genetic mechanisms that can explain such associations using genomic information, genetic knockouts and experimental evolution. This revealed some mutations that are selected for by experimental exposure to one compound and confer cross-resistance to other compounds. Surprisingly, these interactions were asymmetric: selection for chloramphenicol resistance conferred cross-resistance to triclosan and benzalkonium chloride, but selection for triclosan resistance did not confer cross-resistance to other compounds. These results identify genetic changes involved in variable cross-resistance across antibiotics and NAAs, potentially contributing to associations in natural and clinical bacteria.

Modification of Escherichia coli-bacteriophage interactions by surfactants and antibiotics in vitro.

Although experiments indicate that the abiotic environment plays an important role in bacterial interactions with their parasitic viruses (bacteriophages or phages), it is not yet clear how exposure to compounds present in nature alters the impact of phages on bacterial growth and evolution. To address this question, we exposed Escherichia coli K12 MG1655, in combination with three lytic phages, to various substances that natural and clinical microbial populations are likely to encounter: bile salts (present in mammalian gastrointestinal tracts), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS, a common surfactant in cleaning and hygiene products) and four antibiotics (present at variable concentrations in natural and clinical environments). Our results show that bile salts and SDS can reduce the detrimental effect of phages on bacterial growth. In some cases these compounds completely mitigated any negative effects of phages on bacterial growth and consequently bacteria did not evolve resistance to phages in these conditions. The proportional effects of phages were unaffected by antibiotics in most combinations, excepting three cases of phage-drug synergy. These results suggest that accounting for interactions between phages and environmental factors such as surfactants and antibiotics will improve understanding of both bacterial growth and resistance evolution to phages in vivo and in nature.

Adaptation to Parasites and Costs of Parasite Resistance in Mutator and Nonmutator Bacteria.

Parasitism creates selection for resistance mechanisms in host populations and is hypothesized to promote increased host evolvability. However, the influence of these traits on host evolution when parasites are no longer present is unclear. We used experimental evolution and whole-genome sequencing of Escherichia coli to determine the effects of past and present exposure to parasitic viruses (phages) on the spread of mutator alleles, resistance, and bacterial competitive fitness. We found that mutator alleles spread rapidly during adaptation to any of four different phage species, and this pattern was even more pronounced with multiple phages present simultaneously. However, hypermutability did not detectably accelerate adaptation in the absence of phages and recovery of fitness costs associated with resistance. Several lineages evolved phage resistance through elevated mucoidy, and during subsequent evolution in phage-free conditions they rapidly reverted to nonmucoid, phage-susceptible phenotypes. Genome sequencing revealed that this phenotypic reversion was achieved by additional genetic changes rather than by genotypic reversion of the initial resistance mutations. Insertion sequence (IS) elements played a key role in both the acquisition of resistance and adaptation in the absence of parasites; unlike single nucleotide polymorphisms, IS insertions were not more frequent in mutator lineages. Our results provide a genetic explanation for rapid reversion of mucoidy, a phenotype observed in other bacterial species including human pathogens. Moreover, this demonstrates that the types of genetic change underlying adaptation to fitness costs, and consequently the impact of evolvability mechanisms such as increased point-mutation rates, depend critically on the mechanism of resistance.