Poly's Summer Research & Antibiotic Resistance

As part of the summer research program, one of four spaces of the Poly Research Initiative, this past summer, students engaged in research about antibiotic resistance. Specifically, they used primary research data to inform two questions:

Answering both these questions empirically is a recommendation of the National Action Plan to combat the global challenge of increasing antibiotic resistance.

To empirically test their research questions, students extracted metagenomic DNA from their chosen soil sample using microcentrifugation and microfiltration, and screened it for antibiotic resistance genes using molecular biology techniques such as PCR and gel electrophoresis. The results of this study identified five different local soil samples that tested positive for the sulfonamide resistance gene 2 (sul2) and two samples for tetracycline resistance gene M. This data was reviewed and published by the national antibiotic resistance database maintained at Tufts University.

Dr. Bascom-Slack from Tufts University School of Medicine shared about the antibiotic resistance data submitted by students:

“I think it is fantastic that your students did some research of the existing literature to make a determination about what (new to us) resistance genes to look for (in addition to tetracycline resistance genes), determined appropriate amplification conditions and primers based on their literature search. Importantly, it is such a great learning experience that you asked them to use existing data in the literature to form hypotheses about collection sites that might be expected to harbor sulfonamide resistance. The results certainly proved interesting with sul2 gene amplification detected in drainage systems. Also, exploration of the known correlation between heavy metal resistance and antimicrobial resistance through PARE is very interesting to us. We have a few other groups interested in heavy metal resistance.”