UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, UCD Earth Institute and UCD Conway Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland.
School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Nov 20;900:165490. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165490. Epub 2023 Jul 22.
Bacteriophages have been shown to play an important role in harbouring and propagating antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Faecal matter contains high levels of phages, suggesting that faecal contamination of water bodies may lead to increased antimicrobial resistance (AMR) levels due to increased phage loading in aquatic environments. In this study, we assessed whether faecal pollution of three rivers (Rivers Liffey, Tolka, and Dodder) was responsible for increased levels of ARGs in phage particles using established phage-faecal markers, focusing on four ARGs (bla, tet(O), qnrS, and sul1). We observed all four ARGs in phage fractions in all three rivers, with ARGs more frequently observed in agricultural and urban sampling sites compared to their source. These findings highlight the role of faecal pollution in environmental AMR and the impact of agricultural and urban activities on water quality. Furthermore, our results suggest the importance of including phages as indicators when assessing environmental AMR, as they serve as significant reservoirs of resistance genes in aquatic environments. This study provides important insights into the role of faecal pollution and phages in the prevalence of AMR in the environment and the need for their inclusion in future studies to provide a comprehensive understanding of environmental AMR.
噬菌体已被证明在携带和传播抗生素耐药基因（ARGs）方面发挥着重要作用。粪便中含有大量的噬菌体，这表明水体中的粪便污染可能会导致噬菌体在水生环境中的负荷增加，从而导致抗菌药物耐药性（AMR）水平的升高。在本研究中，我们使用已建立的噬菌体-粪便标记物，评估了三条河流（利菲河、托尔卡河和多德尔河）的粪便污染是否导致噬菌体颗粒中 ARGs 水平升高，重点关注了四个 ARGs（bla、tet(O)、qnrS 和 sul1）。我们观察到所有三条河流的噬菌体中都存在这四个 ARGs，与源头相比，在农业和城市采样点中更频繁地观察到 ARGs。这些发现强调了粪便污染在环境 AMR 中的作用以及农业和城市活动对水质的影响。此外，我们的研究结果表明，在评估环境 AMR 时，将噬菌体作为指示物非常重要，因为它们是水生环境中耐药基因的重要储存库。本研究为了解粪便污染和噬菌体在环境中 AMR 流行中的作用以及未来研究中需要将其纳入以全面了解环境 AMR 提供了重要的见解。
