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ARS Home » Plains Area » Lincoln, Nebraska » Agroecosystem Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #424432
Research Project: Managing Manure as a Soil Resource for Improved Biosecurity, Nutrient Availability, and Soil Sustainability

Location: Agroecosystem Management Research

Title: Agriculturally sourced multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli for use as control strains

Author
item Wells, James
item Durso, Lisa
item Ibekwe, Abasiofiok
item Frye, Jonathan
item Sharma, Manan
item Williams, Clinton
item Shamimuzzaman, Md

Submitted to: bioRxiv
Publication Type: Pre-print Publication
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/11/2025
Publication Date: 3/11/2025
Citation: Wells, J., Durso, L.M., Ibekwe, A.M., Frye, J.G., Sharma, M., Williams, C.F., Shamimuzzaman, M. 2025. Agriculturally sourced multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli for use as control strains. bioRxiv. Article 641915. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.07.641915.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.07.641915

Interpretive Summary: Antibiotic resistance is a global health threat. The first step in controlling it, is to track where and when it is found. There are established programs already underway to track antibiotic resistance in people, but efforts to track antibiotic resistance in the environment are lacking. Many efforts focus on tracking antibiotic resistance in E. coli, and use control strains that come from humans. Since human-associated E. coli have been shown to be different from other non-human E. coli, we isolated and characterized two agriculturally-associated E. coli to serve as control strains for future environmental antibiotic resistance tracking efforts.

Technical Abstract: The lack of environmental and agricultural antibiotic resistance surveillance data hinders efforts to assess management impacts or estimate risk. Here we introduce two agriculturally sourced, fully characterized, and sequenced controls for use in surveillance of extended-spectrum ß-lactamase producing and tetracycline resistant Escherichia coli, available via publicly accessible culture collections.