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Lookup NU author(s): Katie Robins, Dr Clare McCannORCiD, Dr Martin Cooke, Dr Charles Knapp, Professor David GrahamORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2022 The Authors. Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) that can encode resistance traits in bacteria are found across the environment. While it is often difficult to discern their origin, their prevalence and diversity depends on many factors, one of which is their exposure to potentially toxic elements (PTE, i.e., metals and metalloids) in soils. Here, we investigated how ambient ARGs and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) relate to the relative bioavailability of different PTEs (total versus exchangeable and carbonate-bound PTE) in rural and urban soils in northeast England. The average relative abundances of ARGs in rural sites varied over a 3-log range (7.24 × 10−7 to 1.0 × 10−4 genes/16S rRNA), and relative ARG abundances in urban sites varied by four orders of magnitude (1.75 × 10−6 to 2.85 × 10−2 genes/16S rRNA). While beta-lactam and aminoglycoside resistance genes dominated rural and urban sites, respectively, non-specific ARGs, also called multidrug-resistance genes, were significantly more abundant in urban sites (p < 0.05). Urban sites also had higher concentrations of total and exchangeable forms of PTE than rural sites, whereas rural sites were higher in carbonate-bound forms. Significant positive Spearman correlations between PTEs, ARGs and MGEs were apparent, especially with bioavailable PTE fractions and at urban sites. This study found significant positive correlations between ARGs and beryllium (Be), which has not previously been reported. Overall, our results show that PTE bioavailability is important in explaining the relative selection of ARGs in soil settings and must be considered in future co-selection and ARG exposure studies.
Author(s): Robins K, McCann CM, Zhou X-Y, Su J-Q, Cooke M, Knapp CW, Graham DW
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Science of the Total Environment
Year: 2022
Volume: 847
Print publication date: 15/11/2022
Online publication date: 22/07/2022
Acceptance date: 15/07/2022
Date deposited: 25/08/2022
ISSN (print): 0048-9697
ISSN (electronic): 1879-1026
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157512
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157512
PubMed id: 35872194
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