Song Mengke, Song Dandan, Jiang Longfei, Zhang Dayi, Sun Yingtao, Chen Guoen, Xu Huijuan, Mei Weiping, Li Yongtao, Luo Chunling, Zhang Gan
College of Natural Resources and Environment, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China; Joint Institute for Environmental Research and Education, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China.
College of Natural Resources and Environment, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China.
J Hazard Mater. 2021 Feb 5;403:123990. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123990. Epub 2020 Sep 17.
Soil is a reservoir of environmental resistomes. Information about their distribution, profiles, and driving forces in undisturbed environments is essential for understanding and managing modern antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in human disturbed environments. However, knowledge about the resistomes in pristine soils is limited, particularly at national scale. Here, we conducted a national-scale investigation of soil resistomes in pristine forests across China. Although the antibiotics content was low and ranged from below limit of detection (LOD) to 0.290 μg/kg, numerous detected ARGs conferring resistance to major classes of modern antibiotics were identified and indicated forest soils as a potential source of resistance traits. ARGs ranged from 6.20 × 10 to 2.52 × 10 copies/16S-rRNA and were predominated by those resisting aminoglycoside and encoding deactivation mechanisms. Low abundance of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) and its scarcely positive connections with ARGs suggest the low potential of horizontal gene transfer. The geographic patterns of ARGs and ARG-hosts in pristine forest soils were mainly driven by soil physiochemical variables and followed a distance-decay relationship. This work focusing on pristine soils can provide valuably new information for our understanding of the ARGs in human disturbed environments.
土壤是环境抗性组的储存库。了解其在未受干扰环境中的分布、特征及驱动因素，对于理解和管理人类干扰环境中的现代抗生素抗性基因（ARGs）至关重要。然而，关于原始土壤中抗性组的知识有限，尤其是在国家尺度上。在此，我们对中国各地原始森林中的土壤抗性组进行了全国尺度的调查。尽管抗生素含量较低，范围从低于检测限（LOD）到0.290μg/kg，但仍鉴定出众多对主要类别的现代抗生素具有抗性的ARGs，并表明森林土壤是抗性特征的潜在来源。ARGs的含量范围为6.20×10至2.52×10拷贝/16S - rRNA，主要以抗氨基糖苷类和编码失活机制的ARGs为主。移动遗传元件（MGEs）的丰度较低，且与ARGs几乎没有正相关关系，这表明水平基因转移的潜力较低。原始森林土壤中ARGs和ARG宿主的地理格局主要受土壤理化变量驱动，并呈现距离衰减关系。这项针对原始土壤的研究可为我们理解人类干扰环境中的ARGs提供有价值的新信息。
