O'Ferrall Angus M, Juhász Alexandra, Jones Sam, Makaula Peter, Namacha Gladys, Ame Shaali, Oguttu David, Foo Aidan, Kayuni Sekeleghe A, LaCourse E James, Musaya Janelisa, Stothard J Russell, Roberts Adam P
Department of Tropical Disease Biology, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK.
Institute of Medical Microbiology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.
Microb Genom. 2025 Aug;11(8). doi: 10.1099/mgen.0.001480.
The transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) from environmental microbes to pathogens is a critical but underexplored One Health driver of antimicrobial resistance. Here, we evaluate freshwater snails, which are geographically widespread aquatic invertebrates, as environmental reservoirs of ARGs. We collected faeces from eight gastropod genera at 15 freshwater locations across Malawi, Uganda, Zanzibar and the UK and conducted the first freshwater snail faecal metagenomic study. We detected putative ARGs predicted to confer resistance to 13 antibiotic classes, including carbapenems. All ARGs that could be assembled into metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) were found within , which dominated the faecal microbiomes and were strongly associated with the total ARG load. In Malawi, we linked ( -like), a previously mobilized carbapenemase gene, to , the gene's known progenitor. We detected another -like gene by read mapping from a sample in the UK. We identified mobile colistin resistance ()-like genes at 11 of 15 locations, with two -like genes being found in an MAG in Uganda. Our findings highlight freshwater snail faeces as a One Health-relevant environmental reservoir of clinically important ARGs.
抗菌抗性基因（ARGs）从环境微生物转移至病原体是抗菌抗性的一个关键但未得到充分探索的“同一健康”驱动因素。在此，我们评估淡水螺作为ARGs的环境储存库，淡水螺是广泛分布于各地的水生无脊椎动物。我们在马拉维、乌干达、桑给巴尔和英国的15个淡水地点收集了8个腹足纲属的粪便，并开展了首次淡水螺粪便宏基因组研究。我们检测到预计对13类抗生素（包括碳青霉烯类）具有抗性的假定ARGs。所有能够组装成宏基因组组装基因组（MAGs）的ARGs均在 中发现， 在粪便微生物群中占主导地位，且与总ARG负荷密切相关。在马拉维，我们将一种先前已转移的碳青霉烯酶基因（ -样）与该基因已知的祖先 联系起来。我们通过对英国一个样本进行 reads 比对检测到另一个 -样基因。我们在15个地点中的11个地点鉴定出了可移动的黏菌素抗性（ ）-样基因，在乌干达的一个 MAG中发现了两个 -样基因。我们的研究结果突出表明淡水螺粪便作为与“同一健康”相关的临床上重要ARGs的环境储存库。
