Evolution of prokaryotic colonisation of greenhouse plastics discarded into the environment

Time-course biofilm formation and presence of antibiotic resistance genes on everyday plastic items deployed in river waters

“…In the late stages of the plastisphere formation (6-12 months of colonization), many of the previously described families are already consolidated, so there were no substantial changes in the families with the highest relative abundances, although there were some exceptions. This is the case for the family Hymenobacteraceae, which has been previously described in association with greenhouse plastics in rivers (Martínez-Campos et al, 2022). The Nitrospirales family, characterized by its participation in the nitrogen cycle, also formed part of the plastisphere of site 2, which may be an adaptation of the community attached to the plastisphere to the nitrogen compounds (Baskaran et al, 2020) released by the WWTP effluent.…”

“…In the PS dish core microbiome, the genus Pirellula was found previously colonizing PS in different ecosystems (Purohit et al, 2020). Other associated genera identified in the PS dish which have been found in the plastisphere in previous studies were Pleurocapsa (Rogers et al, 2020), Sphingorhabdus (Di Pippo et al, 2020) and Hymenobacter (Martínez-Campos et al, 2022). Also noteworthy is the presence of the genus Rhodopirellula, a genus with the ability to degrade hydrocarbons (de Araujo et al, 2021).…”

“…(Amaral-Zettler et al, 2020). Other bacterial genera previously detected as attached to LDPE plastics in river water include Pseudorhodobacter and Porphyrobacter (Martínez-Campos et al, 2022). Regarding eukaryotes, the presence of different types of plants such as Marsiela or Pinophyta could result in the input of organic matter and compounds such as cellulose on the plastics, which can be used by certain bacteria such as Lacihabitans (Szabó et al, 2021).…”

“…Subsequently, its poor management means that at least 60% of the plastics produced end up in landfills or in the environment (Chamas et al, 2020;. In the environment, plastics can be transported from the soil and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to rivers and consequently to oceans (Jambeck et al, 2015;Martínez-Campos et al, 2022). In fact, the major point-source of plastic to the oceans is known to be by river discharge (Meijer et al, 2021).…”

Laboratory Plasticware Induces Expression of a Bacterial Virulence Factor

“…It is not clear whether the induction phenomenon described here bears any relevance to R. equi -caused disease, yet it is interesting that R. equi growing on plastic catheters can cause bacteremia in cancer patients ( 40 ). Additionally, reports by others show that rhodococci, as ubiquitous environmental degraders, can be closely associated with environmental plastic ( 41 – 43 ). Collectively, our data allow at least four relevant conclusions: (i) contact with plastic can strongly influence the expression of bacterial virulence genes, (ii) several kinds of plastic can regulate expression of the same gene, (iii) induction is dependent on surface characteristics of plastic, and (iv) phenomena like this could further increase the danger when plastic microparticles with “artificially” induced virulence or metabolic genes are ingested.…”