Faecal microbiome and the associated antimicrobial resistance genes in Australian companion and food animals

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has become a global issue for human and animal health and welfare. It narrows down the choice of antimicrobials to treat infections and increases the costs of treatment. Effective antimicrobial stewardship is critical to ensure antimicrobials are used appropriately. Monitoring the antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) in bacteria is one of the important parts of antimicrobial stewardship. Bacteria in animal faeces harbor various ARGs. The traditional culture-based approaches to detect ARGs in the faecal bacteria are limited to the culturable bacteria, which only represent a small fraction of the faecal microbiome. The culture-independent approaches, such as h..