Metagenomic analysis reveals that bacteriophages are reservoirs of antibiotic resistance genes

A metagenomics approach was applied to explore the presence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in bacteriophages from hospital wastewater. Metagenomic analysis showed that most phage sequences affiliated to the order Caudovirales, comprising the tailed phage families Podoviridae, Siphoviridae and Myoviridae. Moreover, the relative abundance of ARGs in the phage DNA fraction (0.26%) was higher than in the bacterial DNA fraction (0.18%). These differences were particularly evident for genes encoding ATP-binding cassette (ABC) and resistance-nodulation-cell division (RND) proteins, phosphotransferases, β-lactamases and plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance. Analysis of assembled contigs also revealed that blaOXA-10, blaOXA-58 and blaOXA-24 genes belonging to class D β-lactamases as well as a novel blaTEM (98.9% sequence similarity to the blaTEM-1 gene) belonging to class A β-lactamases were detected in a higher proportion in phage DNA. Although preliminary, these findings corroborate the role of bacteriophages as reservoirs of resistance genes and thus highlight the necessity to include them in future studies on the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance in the environment.