TY - JOUR

T1 - Co-selection of antibiotic resistance genes, and mobile genetic elements in the presence of heavy metals in poultry farm environments

AU - Mazhar, Sohaib H.

AU - Li, Xuanji

AU - Rashid, Azhar

AU - Su, JunMing

AU - Xu, Junqiang

AU - Brejnrod, Asker Daniel

AU - Su, Jian-Qiang

AU - Wu, Yijian

AU - Zhu, Yong-Guan

AU - Zhou, Shun Gui

AU - Feng, Renwei

AU - Rensing, Christopher

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - AbstractEnvironmental selection of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) is considered to be caused by antibiotic or metal residues, frequently used in livestock. In this study we examined three commercial poultry farms to correlate the co-occurrence patterns of antibiotic and metal residues to the presence of ARGs. We quantified 283 ARGs, 12 mobile genetic elements (MGEs), 49 targeted antibiotics, 7 heavy metals and sequenced 16S rRNA genes. The abundance and type of ARG were significantly enriched in manure while soil harbored the most diverse bacterial community. Procrustes analysis displayed significant correlations between ARGs/MGEs and the microbiome. Cadmium (Cd), arsenic (As), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu) and lead (Pb) were responsible for a majority of positive correlations to ARGs when compared to antibiotics. Integrons and transposons co-occurred with ARGs corresponding to 9 classes of antibiotics, especially Class1 integrase intI-1LC. Redundancy analysis (RDA) and Variance partitioning analysis (VPA) showed that antibiotics, metals, MGEs and bacteria explain solely 0.7%, 5.7%, 12.4%, and 21.9% of variances of ARGs in the microbial community, respectively. These results suggested that bacterial composition and horizontal gene transfer were the major factors shaping the composition of ARGs; Metals had a bigger effect on ARG profile than detected antibiotics in this study.

AB - AbstractEnvironmental selection of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) is considered to be caused by antibiotic or metal residues, frequently used in livestock. In this study we examined three commercial poultry farms to correlate the co-occurrence patterns of antibiotic and metal residues to the presence of ARGs. We quantified 283 ARGs, 12 mobile genetic elements (MGEs), 49 targeted antibiotics, 7 heavy metals and sequenced 16S rRNA genes. The abundance and type of ARG were significantly enriched in manure while soil harbored the most diverse bacterial community. Procrustes analysis displayed significant correlations between ARGs/MGEs and the microbiome. Cadmium (Cd), arsenic (As), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu) and lead (Pb) were responsible for a majority of positive correlations to ARGs when compared to antibiotics. Integrons and transposons co-occurred with ARGs corresponding to 9 classes of antibiotics, especially Class1 integrase intI-1LC. Redundancy analysis (RDA) and Variance partitioning analysis (VPA) showed that antibiotics, metals, MGEs and bacteria explain solely 0.7%, 5.7%, 12.4%, and 21.9% of variances of ARGs in the microbial community, respectively. These results suggested that bacterial composition and horizontal gene transfer were the major factors shaping the composition of ARGs; Metals had a bigger effect on ARG profile than detected antibiotics in this study.

U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142702

DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142702

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 33049532

VL - 755

JO - Science of the Total Environment

JF - Science of the Total Environment

SN - 0048-9697

IS - Part 2

M1 - 142702

ER -