Occurrence and distribution characteristics of antibiotic resistance genes in sediments between urban and rural of the Liaohe River Basin, China.

Guangshui Na,Keyu Zhang,Shisheng Li,Ruijing Li,Hui Gao,Fuqiang Zhao,Shuaichen Jin,Haibo Zhang

doi:10.1007/s11356-021-13560-y

Abstract

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are considered to be emerging pollutants related to human activities. The rapid development of global urbanization has expanded human activities, thereby exacerbating the global human health risks caused by antibiotic resistance genes. The effects of urban and rural environments are multifarious, which makes the source and distribution of ARGs in the environment diversification. Understanding the distribution and spread of ARGs is essential for studying the environmental behavior of ARGs. In this study, the occurrence 296 genes were detected by the high-throughput qPCR technology, and FC value was used to analyze the diversity of ARGs and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) in sediments between urban and rural areas of the Liaohe River Basin, China. The co-occurrence of MGEs and ARGs was analyzed using network to decipher core genes. A total of 187 ARGs and 10 MGEs were detected in all sediment samples. The average number of genes detected in urban sites is 89 higher than that in rural sites. The high abundance and various types of ARGs and MGEs detected in urban river sediments indicate that the occurrence of urban ARGs is more complex. MGEs were detected high levels and were significantly correlated with the abundance and diversity of ARGs in river sediments providing evidence that MGEs were related to the occurrence and distribution of ARGs and tnpA (tnpA-07, tnpA-01, and tnpA-03) gene were at the key position of co-occurrence of various types of ARGs.

Highlights

Antibiotics have antibacterial properties, prevent diseases and promote growth (Danner et al 2019), so they are widely used in the prevention and treatment of human and livestock diseases, as well as in the breeding of livestock and aquaculture animals, which caused an increase in resistance to various antibiotics, posing a major threat to modern health work (Davies et al, 2010)
The sediments in the Liaohe River Basin were influenced by a variety of Antibiotic Resistance Genes (ARGs), which is reflected in the diversity of the types of ARGs detected in the sediments, and affected by ARGs with different resistance mechanisms
This study analyzed the distribution and enrichment of 177 antibiotic resistance genes, 16SrRNA, Mobile Genetic Elements (MGEs) and the distribution of resistance mechanisms detected in the sediments of the Liaohe River Basin

Summary

Introduction

Antibiotics have antibacterial properties, prevent diseases and promote growth (Danner et al 2019), so they are widely used in the prevention and treatment of human and livestock diseases, as well as in the breeding of livestock and aquaculture animals, which caused an increase in resistance to various antibiotics, posing a major threat to modern health work (Davies et al, 2010). Studies have shown that antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon, and human activities accelerate the spread of ARGs (Chen et al, 2013). The river environment can provide an ideal environment for the physical transportation, acquisition and dissemination of ARGs, which is related to the comprehensive influence of the differences between urban and rural (Marti et al, 2014). Most researches focus on the characteristics of the occurrence of antibiotic resistance genes in river waters (Wang et al, 2016; Martie et al, 2018), while ARGs in sediments are 120 to 2,000 times higher than in water samples (Luo et al, 2010) and research on sediments of urban and rural is lacking

Methods

Results

Conclusion