School of Biology, Food, and Environment, Hefei University, No. 99 Jinxiu Road, Hefei, 230601, China.
International (Sino-German) Joint Research Center for Biomass of Anhui Province, Hefei, 230601, China.
Curr Microbiol. 2024 Sep 5;81(10):344. doi: 10.1007/s00284-024-03825-3.
The problem of bacterial resistance caused by antibiotic abuse is seriously detrimental to global human health and ecosystem security. The two-dimensional nanomaterial (2D) such as black phosphorus (BP) is recently expected to become a new bacterial inhibitor and has been widely used in the antibacterial field due to its specific physicochemical properties. Nevertheless, the effects of 2D-BP on the propagation of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in environments and the relevant mechanisms are not clear. Herein, we observed that the sub-inhibitory concentrations of 2D-BP dramatically increased the conjugative transfer of ARGs mediated by the RP4 plasmid up to 2.6-fold at the 125 mg/L exposure level compared with the untreated bacterial cells. Nevertheless, 2D-BP with the inhibitory concentration caused a dramatic decrease in the conjugative frequency. The phenotypic changes revealed that the increase of the conjugative transfer caused by 2D-BP exposure were attributed to the excessive reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress, and increased bacterial cell membrane permeability. The genotypic evidence demonstrated that 2D-BP affecting the horizontal gene transfer of ARGs was probably through the upregulation of mating pair formation genes (trbBp and traF) and DNA transfer and replication genes (trfAp and traJ), as well as the downregulation of global regulatory gene expression (korA, korB, and trbA). In summary, the changes in the functional and regulatory genes in the conjugative transfer contributed to the stimulation of conjugative transfer. This research aims to broaden our comprehension of how nanomaterials influence the dissemination of ARGs by elucidating their effects and mechanisms.
抗生素滥用导致的细菌耐药性问题严重危害全球人类健康和生态系统安全。二维纳米材料（2D）如黑磷（BP）由于其独特的物理化学性质，最近有望成为新型细菌抑制剂，并已广泛应用于抗菌领域。然而，2D-BP 对环境中抗生素耐药基因（ARGs）传播的影响及其相关机制尚不清楚。在此，我们观察到亚抑制浓度的 2D-BP 在 125mg/L 暴露水平下，与未经处理的细菌细胞相比，可将由 RP4 质粒介导的 ARGs 共转移增加 2.6 倍。然而，具有抑制浓度的 2D-BP 会导致共转移频率急剧下降。表型变化表明，2D-BP 暴露引起的共转移增加归因于过量的活性氧和氧化应激，以及增加的细菌细胞膜通透性。基因型证据表明，2D-BP 影响 ARGs 的水平基因转移可能是通过上调配对形成基因（trbBp 和 traF）和 DNA 转移和复制基因（trfAp 和 traJ），以及下调全局调控基因表达（korA、korB 和 trbA）来实现的。总之，共转移中功能和调控基因的变化导致了共转移的刺激。本研究旨在通过阐明纳米材料对 ARGs 传播的影响及其机制，拓宽我们对纳米材料如何影响 ARGs 传播的理解。
