Pediatric Fecal Metagenome

Functional metagenomic selections were performed from various pediatric fecal metagenomes, enriched for children in the first two years of life. A major goal was to understand how antibiotic resistance genes establish and propagate among developing intestinal microbiomes. Fecal metagenomic DNA was cloned into an E. coli library and subjected to selections for antibiotic resistance. After selection, resistance-conferring fragments (the only fragments conferring survival to E. coli in the presence of the drugs) were PCR-amplified, sequenced, and assembled.