Antibiotic Resistance Genes in River Biofilms: A Metagenomic Approach toward the Identification of Sources and Candidate Hosts

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Treated wastewater is a major pathway by which antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) enter aquatic ecosystems. However, knowledge gaps remain concerning the dissemination of specific ARG and their association with bacterial hosts. Here, we employed shotgun metagenomics to track ARG and taxonomic markers in river biofilms along a gradient of fecal pollution depicted by crAssphage signatures. We found strong evidence for an impact of wastewater effluents on both community composition and resistomes. In the light of such simultaneity, we employed a model comparison technique to identify ARG-host relationships from nonassembled metagenomic DNA. Hereby, a major cause of spurious associations otherwise encountered in correlation-based ARG-host analyses was suppressed. For several families of ARG, namely those conferring resistance to beta-lactams, particular bacterial orders were identified as candidate hosts. The found associations of blaFOX and cphA with Aeromonadales or blaPER with Chromatiales support the outcome of independent evolutionary analyses and thus confirm the potential of the methodology. For other ARG families including blaIMP or tet, clusters of bacterial orders were identified which potentially harbor a major proportion of host species. For yet other ARG, like, for example, ant or erm, no particular host candidates were identifiable, indicating their spread across various taxonomic groups.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)14913-14922
Number of pages10
JournalEnvironmental science & technology
Volume56
Issue number21
Early online date25 Apr 2022
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85129468134
Mendeley 9445afb2-6ccc-35c0-920f-2381bb1da5f8
ORCID /0000-0002-6048-6984/work/142240084
ORCID /0000-0002-9301-1803/work/161409812

Keywords

Sustainable Development Goals

Keywords

  • Anti-Bacterial Agents/pharmacology, Bacteria/genetics, Biofilms, Drug Resistance, Microbial/genetics, Ecosystem, Genes, Bacterial, Rivers/microbiology, Waste Water