Trends in Antibiotic Resistance Genes Occurrence in the Haihe River, China

Abstract

The occurrence of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) was quantified in water and sediment samples collected from a 72 km stretch of the Haihe River, China. Tetracycline resistance genes (tetW, tetQ, tetO, tetT, tetM, tetB, and tetS) were not detected by quantitative PCR in many samples. In contrast, sul1 and sul2 (coding for sulfonamide resistance) were present at relatively high concentrations in all (38) samples. The highest ARG concentrations detected were (7.8 ± 1.0) × 10(9) copies/g for sul1 and (1.7 ± 0.2) × 10(11) copies/g for sul2, in sediment samples collected during the summer. The corresponding total bacterial concentration (quantified with a universal 16S-rDNA probe) was (3.3 ± 0.4) × 10(12) cells/g. Sul1 and sul2 concentrations in sediments were 120-2000 times higher than that in water, indicating that sediments are an important ARG reservoir in the Haihe River. Statistical analysis indicated a positive correlation between the relative abundance of these ARGs (i.e., sul1/16S-rDNA and sul2/16S-rDNA) and the total concentration of sulfamethoxazole, sulfadiazine, plus sulfachlororyridazine, suggesting that sulfonamides exerted selective pressure for these ARGs. A class 1 integron was implicated in the propagation of sul1. Overall, the widespread distribution of sulfonamide ARGs underscores the need to better understand and mitigate their propagation in the environment and the associated risks to public health.

Antibiotic resistance genes in an urban river as impacted by bacterial community and physicochemical parameters

“…The abundance and diversity of ARGs in this urban river system were higher than previously reported from other Chinese urban rivers (Luo et al 2010;Xu et al 2016;Ouyang et al 2015). Among the genes found in all water samples, aadA2-03, aadA1, bla VEB , bla TEM , and qacEΔ1 were consistently detected at high abundance.…”

Dissemination of veterinary antibiotics and corresponding resistance genes from a concentrated swine feedlot along the waste treatment paths

“…6b), while the correlation between the total TRGs and the total TCs was not significant. Similar results have been reported by previous studies (Gao et al, 2012;Luo et al, 2010;Mckinney et al, 2010;Peak et al, 2007). It is seen that the relatively high water solubility and stability of SAs tend to promote the spread of antibiotic resistance and also contribute to the strong correlation between SRGs and SAs in the aquatic environment (CheeSanford et al, 2009).…”

“…The presence of residual antibiotics could enhance the resistance level of microbial communities and promote the proliferation of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in swine manure (Looft et al, 2012), livestock and poultry wastewater (Mckinney et al, 2010;Peak et al, 2007), farmland soil (Huang et al, 2013;Wu et al, 2010), and surface water (Graham et al, 2010;Luo et al, 2010). The residual antibiotics could promote the accumulation of ARGs even at subtherapeutic levels (Ghosh and Lapara, 2007).…”

Biodegradation of sulfamethoxazole: current knowledge and perspectives

“…Several studies have measured a resistance to SMX in bacteria isolated from biological WW treatment (Costanzo et al 2005;Reinthaler et al 2003), which has raised concerns regarding the prevalence of SMX in WWs leading to the development of bacterial resistance in the aquatic environment. These concerns have been validated recently by the detection of sulfonamide resistance genes in river water (which was correlated to the total SMX concentration among other sulfonamides) (Luo et al 2010) and the prevalence of SMX-resistant bacteria in aquaculture environments (Gao et al 2012b). …”