Environmental microbiome diversity and stability is a barrier to antimicrobial resistance gene accumulation

Abstract

When antimicrobial resistant bacteria (ARB) and genes (ARGs) reach novel habitats, they can become part of the habitat’s microbiome in the long term if they are able to overcome the habitat’s biotic resilience towards immigration. This process should become more difficult with increasing biodiversity, as exploitable niches in a given habitat are reduced for immigrants when more diverse competitors are present. Consequently, microbial diversity could provide a natural barrier towards antimicrobial resistance by reducing the persistence time of immigrating ARB and ARG. To test this hypothesis, a pan-European sampling campaign was performed for structured forest soil and dynamic riverbed environments of low anthropogenic impact. In soils, higher diversity, evenness and richness were significantly negatively correlated with relative abundance of >85% of ARGs. Furthermore, the number of detected ARGs per sample were inversely correlated with diversity. However, no such effects were present in the more dynamic riverbeds. Hence, microbiome diversity can serve as a barrier towards antimicrobial resistance dissemination in stationary, structured environments, where long-term, diversity-based resilience against immigration can evolve.

Tracing the transmission of carbapenem-resistantEnterobacteralesat the patient:ward environmental nexus

“…Without adequate processing at wastewater treatment plants, and the risk of sewage being released into water systems, this may lead to the distribution of these MDROs and their AMR genes back into environmental and community settings [11], [12]. This is especially likely to be problematic in low- and middle-income settings, where the treatment of wastewater may not be adequate to remove these organisms [13].…”