AAC：一种检测致病菌抗生素耐药基因的微阵列技术

近日，来自英国的研究者通过研究开发出的一种新型的微阵列技术，研究者在实验中评估了这种新型的微阵列技术对于检测广泛的革兰氏阴性致病菌抗生素耐药性基因上的效用。相关研究报告“Evaluation of an expanded microarray for detecting antibiotic resistance genes in a broad range of Gram-negative bacterial pathogens.”刊登在了11月5日的国际杂志Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy上。

这种新型的微阵列技术可以检测包括19个不同的抗生素家族及75个临床相关的抗生素耐药性基因，并且可以对132个革兰氏阴性致病菌进行检测。微阵列技术所揭示的抗生素耐药性的表型阳性结果大于91%，检测特异性大于83%。而且未包括相关耐药性表型的微阵列技术阳性结果与PCR所得的结果匹配结果为94%，这也就表明了，无论是基因表达强度低还是不存在，通过微阵列检测出的细菌耐药基因的结果是可信的。

对于一些抗菌耐药性系列所得的微阵列结果的低灵敏度以及阴性预测值，研究者Roderick Card说，这有可能是由于抗性基因数量的限制所导致的，或者是耐药基因发生了突变所引发的。

这种新型微阵列技术可用于临床上的诊断，来帮助医生们采取正确的治疗手段来治疗由于耐药性革兰氏阴性致病菌的感染，对于治疗那些因为疗法失败的病人有一定的帮助。

PMC:

PMID:

Evaluation of an expanded microarray for detecting antibiotic resistance genes in a broad range of Gram-negative bacterial pathogens.

Card R, Zhang J, Das P, Cook C, Woodford N, Anjum MF.

A microarray capable of detecting 75 clinically-relevant antibiotic resistance genes, encompassing 19 different antimicrobial classes, was tested on 132 Gram-negative bacteria. Microarray-positive results correlated >91% with antimicrobial resistance phenotypes, assessed using British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy clinical breakpoints; the overall test specificity was >83%. Microarray-positive results without a corresponding resistance phenotype matched 94% with PCR, indicating accurate detection of genes present in the respective bacteria by microarray when expression was low or absent, and hence undetectable by susceptibility testing. The low sensitivity and negative predictive values of the microarray results for identifying resistance to some antimicrobial resistance classes is likely due to the limited number of resistance genes present on the current microarray for those antimicrobial agents, or to mutation-based resistance mechanisms. With regular updates, this microarray can be used for clinical diagnostics to help accurate therapeutic options to be taken following infection with multi-antibiotic resistant Gram-negative bacteria and prevent treatment failure.