Abstract
Despite increasing evidence that antibiotic resistant pathogens are shared among humans and animals, the diversity, abundance and patterns of spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in wildlife remains unclear. We identified 194 ARGs associated with phenotypic resistance to 13 types of antibiotic in meta-transcriptomic data generated from a broad range of lower vertebrates residing in both terrestrial and aquatic habitats. These ARGs, confirmed by PCR, included those that shared high sequence similarity to clinical isolates of public health concern. Notably, the lower vertebrate resistome varied by ecological niche of the host sampled. The resistomes in marine fish shared high similarity and were characterized by very high abundance, distinct from that observed in other habitats. An assessment of ARG mobility found that ARGs in marine fish were frequently co-localized with mobile elements, indicating that they were likely spread by horizontal gene transfer. Together, these data reveal the remarkable diversity and transcriptional levels of ARGs in lower vertebrates, and suggest that these wildlife species might play an important role in the global spread of ARGs.