Abstract
Background: According to the One Health concept, the physical proximity between pets and their owners facilitates the interspecies spread of bacteria including those that may harbor numerous antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs). Methods: A shotgun sequencing metagenomic data-based bacteriome and resistome study of 1830 canine saliva samples was conducted considering the subsets of ARGs with higher public health risk, ESKAPE pathogen relatedness (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacter species), and survey results on the physical and behavioral characteristics of the participating dogs. Results: A total of 318 ARG types achieved sufficiently high detection rates. These ARGs can affect 31 antibiotic drug classes through various resistance mechanisms. ARGs against tetracyclines, cephalosporins, and, interestingly, peptides appeared in the highest number of samples. Other Critically Important Antimicrobials (CIAs, WHO), such as aminoglycosides, fluoroquinolones, or macrolides, were among the drug classes most frequently affected by ARGs of higher public health risk and ESKAPE pathogen-related ARGs of higher public health risk. Several characteristics, including coat color, sterilization status, size, activity, or aggressiveness, were associated with statistically significant differences in ARG occurrence rates (p < 0.0500). Conclusions: Although the oral microbiome of pet owners is unknown, the One Health and public health implications of the close human-pet bonds and the factors potentially underlying the increase in salivary ARG numbers should be considered, particularly in light of the presence of ARGs affecting critically important drugs for human medicine.