Palm Martin, Fransson Alfred, Hultén Julia, Búcaro Stenman Karolina, Allouche Amina, Chiang Oscar E, Constandse Mirthe L, van Dijk Karlijn J, Icli Suheda, Klimesova Bela, Korhonen Emma, Martínez-Crespo Gema, Meggers Dominik, Naydenova Margarita, Polychronopoulou Maria An, Schuntermann Dominik B, Unal Havva, Wasylkowska Agnieszka, Farewell Anne
Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Gothenburg, 40530 Gothenburg, Sweden.
Centre for Antibiotic Resistance Research (CARe), University of Gothenburg, 40530, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Antibiotics (Basel). 2022 Aug 19;11(8):1123. doi: 10.3390/antibiotics11081123.
Conjugation, the process by which conjugative plasmids are transferred between bacteria, is regarded as a major contributor to the spread of antibiotic resistance, in both environmental and clinical settings. Heavy metals are known to co-select for antibiotic resistance, but the impact of the presence of these metals on conjugation itself is not clear. Here, we systematically investigate the impact that five heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, copper, manganese, and zinc) have on the transfer of an IncF conjugative plasmid in . Our results show that two of the metals, cadmium and manganese, have no significant impact, while arsenic and zinc both reduce conjugation efficiency by approximately 2-fold. Copper showed the largest impact, with an almost 100-fold decrease in conjugation efficiency. This was not mediated by any change in transcription from the major Py promoter responsible for transcription of the conjugation machinery genes. Further, we show that in order to have this severe impact on the transfer of the plasmid, copper sulfate needs to be present during the mating process, and we suggest explanations for this.
接合作用是指接合性质粒在细菌之间转移的过程，在环境和临床环境中，它都被认为是抗生素耐药性传播的主要因素。已知重金属会共同选择抗生素耐药性，但这些金属的存在对接合作用本身的影响尚不清楚。在此，我们系统地研究了五种重金属（砷、镉、铜、锰和锌）对IncF接合性质粒在[具体环境未提及]中转移的影响。我们的结果表明，其中两种金属，镉和锰，没有显著影响，而砷和锌都使接合效率降低了约2倍。铜的影响最大，接合效率几乎降低了100倍。这不是由负责接合机制基因转录的主要Py启动子的转录变化介导的。此外，我们表明，为了对质粒转移产生这种严重影响，在交配过程中需要存在硫酸铜，我们对此提出了解释。
