Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Petrochemical Pollution Processes and Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Guangdong University of Petrochemical Technology, Maoming, Guangdong 525000, China; Department of Environmental Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Oct 20;740:140001. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140001. Epub 2020 Jun 10.
As an important reservoir of intrinsic antimicrobial resistance, soil is subjected to increasing anthropogenic activities that creates sustained selection pressure for the prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), thus constituting an important environmental dissemination pathway to human exposure. This study investigated the levels and spatial distributions of three classes of ARGs in relation to a range of co-occurring chemical mixtures and soil properties at a regional scale of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), China. The selected eight ARGs were all detected in 241 agricultural soil samples with relative abundances ranging from 1.01 × 10 to 2.31 × 10 normalized to the 16S rRNA gene. The sulII and tetG were the dominant ARGs with a mean relative abundance of 6.67 × 10 and 5.25 × 10, respectively. The ARGs were mainly present in agricultural soils alongside Taihu Lake and Shanghai municipality, the most agriculturally and economically vibrant area of the YRD region. Antibiotics, rather than other co-occurring pollutants and soil properties, remain to be the dominant correlate to the ARGs, suggesting their co-introduction into the soils via irrigation and manure application or the sustained selection pressure of antibiotics from these sources for the proliferation of ARGs in the soils. While the current dataset provided useful information to assess the ARGs pollution for mitigation, future studies are warranted to reveal the complete picture on the potential transfer of antimicrobial resistance from soil to agricultural produces to human consumption and associated health implications.
作为内在抗菌抗性的重要储存库，土壤受到越来越多的人为活动的影响，这些活动为抗生素抗性基因 (ARGs) 的流行创造了持续的选择压力，因此构成了人类接触的重要环境传播途径。本研究调查了三类 ARGs 与一系列共存的化学混合物和土壤特性之间的关系，研究区域为中国长江三角洲（YRD）的一个区域尺度。在所选择的 241 个农业土壤样本中，均检测到了这 8 个 ARGs，其相对丰度范围为 1.01×10 至 2.31×10，相对于 16S rRNA 基因进行归一化。sulII 和 tetG 是主要的 ARGs，其平均相对丰度分别为 6.67×10 和 5.25×10。ARGs 主要存在于太湖和上海市附近的农业土壤中，这些地区是 YRD 地区农业和经济最活跃的地区。抗生素而不是其他共存污染物和土壤特性仍然是 ARGs 的主要相关因素，这表明它们通过灌溉和粪便应用或这些来源的抗生素持续选择压力而共同引入土壤，从而促进了 ARGs 在土壤中的繁殖。虽然当前的数据集提供了评估 ARGs 污染以进行缓解的有用信息，但未来的研究仍有必要揭示土壤中抗菌抗性向农业生产、人类消费和相关健康影响的潜在转移的全貌。
