Institute of Polar Environment & Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Polar Environment and Global Change, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
The James Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, U.K.
Environ Sci Technol. 2024 Aug 13;58(32):14460-14474. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.4c02732. Epub 2024 Jul 31.
Numerous penguins can propagate pathogens with antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) into Antarctica. However, the effects of penguin dissemination on the lake ARGs still have received little attention via guano deposition. Here, we have profiled ARGs in ornithogenic sediments subject to penguin guano (OLS) and nonornithogenic sediments (NOLS) from 16 lakes across Antarctica. A total of 191 ARGs were detected in all sediment samples, with a much higher abundance and diversity in OLS than in NOLS. Surprisingly, highly diverse and abundant ARGs were found in the OLS with a detection frequency of >40% and an absolute abundance of (2.34 × 10)-(4.98 × 10) copies g, comparable to those in coastal estuarine sediments and pig farms. The strong correlations of identified resistance genes with penguin guano input amount, environmental factors, mobile genetic elements, and bacterial community, in conjunction with network and redundancy analyses, all indicated that penguins were responsible for the dissemination and high enrichment of ARGs in lake sediments via the guano deposition, which might greatly outweigh local human-activity effects. Our results revealed that ARGs could be carried into lakes across the Antarctica through penguin migration, food chains, and guano deposition, which were closely connected with the widespread pollution of ARGs at the global scale.
大量企鹅可将携带抗生素耐药基因（ARGs）的病原体传播到南极洲。然而，通过鸟粪沉积，企鹅传播对湖泊 ARGs 的影响仍鲜有研究。在此，我们对来自南极洲 16 个湖泊的鸟粪（OLS）和非鸟粪（NOLS）沉积中的 ARGs 进行了研究。所有沉积物样本中共检测到 191 个 ARGs，OLS 中的丰度和多样性明显高于 NOLS。令人惊讶的是，OLS 中存在着高度多样和丰富的 ARGs，检测频率>40%，绝对丰度为(2.34×10)-(4.98×10)拷贝 g，与沿海河口沉积物和养猪场相当。鉴定出的抗性基因与企鹅鸟粪输入量、环境因子、移动遗传元件和细菌群落的强烈相关性，以及网络和冗余分析均表明，企鹅通过鸟粪沉积将 ARGs 传播和高度富集到湖泊沉积物中，其对 ARGs 的传播和富集作用可能远大于当地人类活动的影响。研究结果表明，ARGs 可通过企鹅迁徙、食物链和鸟粪沉积进入南极洲湖泊，这与 ARGs 在全球范围内的广泛污染密切相关。
