Journal
ECOTOXICOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY
Volume 210, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2020.111822
Keywords
Anaerobic fermentation; Exogenous copper; Antibiotic resistance genes; Co-selection
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China, China [31772803]
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Heavy metal pollution can act as a selective pressure for antibiotic resistance genes, while anaerobic fermentation is effective in mitigating antibiotic resistance diffusion. The relative abundance of certain genes increased at the late stage of fermentation and was linked to copper content. Copper had a significant impact on anaerobic fermentation and the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes.
Heavy metal pollution can serve as a selective pressure for antibiotic resistance genes in polluted environments. Anaerobic fermentation, as a recommended wastewater treatment method, is an effective mitigation measure of antibiotic resistance diffusion. To explore the influence of copper on anaerobic fermentation, we exposed the fermentation substrate to copper in a laboratory setup. We found that the relative abundance of 8 genes (pcoD, tetT, tetA, tetB, tetO, qnrS, ermA and ermB) increased at the late stage of fermentation and their abundance was linked to copper content. Corynebacterium and Streptococcus were significantly positively correlated with ermA, ermB, tetA and tetB (P < 0.05). The relative abundance of tetT was significantly positively correlated with Terrisporobacter, Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1 and Turicibacter (P < 0.05). We screened 90 strains of copper resistant bacteria from blank, medium and high copper test groups on days 25, 31 and 37. The number of fragments carried by a single strain increased with time while intl1, ermA and ermB existed in almost all combinations of the multiple fragments we identified. The relative abundance of these three genes were linearly correlated with Corynebacterium and Streptococcus. The antibiotic resistance genes carried by class 1 integrons gradually increased with time in the fermentation system and integrons carrying ermA and ermB most likely contributed to host survival through the late stages of fermentation. The genera Corynebacterium and Streptococcus may be the primary carriers of such integrated mobile gene element and this was most likely the reason for their rebound in relative abundance during the late fermentation stages.
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