ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Antimicrobials, Resistance and Chemotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1496275
This article is part of the Research TopicHorizontal Transfer of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in the Environment: Dynamic, Contributing Factors, and ControlView all 9 articles
The restriction impacts of the Type Ⅲ restriction-modification system on the transmission dynamics of antimicrobial resistance genes in Campylobacter jejuni
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Health Inspection and Quarantine, Shandong University, Jinan, China
- 2Department of Pathogen Biology, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, China
- 3Department of Radiation Oncology，Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Shandong University, Jinan, China
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The spread of antibiotic resistance genes among Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni) is a serious problem, and the effects of the restriction-modification (R-M) system on the transmission dynamics of these genes in C. jejuni remain poorly understood.Complete genome sequences of C. jejuni strains were extracted from the BV-BRC database until March 25, 2024. The phylogenetic and the resistance analysis were used to analyze the distribution of resistance genes in C. jejuni. The impacts of the R-M systems on the AMR genes transmission between C. jejuni strains and the possible mechanisms were explored through recombination, pangenome and mobile genetic elements analysis.Results: C. jejuni strains carrying the Type III R-M system have a significantly lower number of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes compared to strains without this system (p < 0.0001), with covariance value being -0.0526. The recombination analysis also shows that the median number of the number of AMR genes in the strains not possessing the Type Ⅲ R-M system increases by 19.38% compared to strains carrying that system (p < 0.0001). We also find that the horizontal gene transfer frequency might have limited relationship with the Type III R-M system in C. jejuni through pangenome and mobile genetic elements analysis.Our research indicates that the Type III R-M system might restrict the transmission of AMR genes potentially by affecting recombination in C. jejuni, which provides a theoretical basis for addressing the drug resistance problem.
Keywords: Campylobacter jejuni, Restriction-modification system, antibiotic resistance genes, Transmission dynamics, Drug Resistance
Received: 14 Sep 2024; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Qiu, Wen, Hao, Guo, Tian and Zhou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hong-Ling Wen, Department of Health Inspection and Quarantine, Shandong University, Jinan, China
Liang Hao, Department of Health Inspection and Quarantine, Shandong University, Jinan, China
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