An integrated multidisciplinary-based framework for characterizing environmental risks of heavy metals and their effects on antibiotic resistomes in agricultural soils

In this study, a new integrated multidisciplinary-based framework has been proposed to better understand the environmental risks of heavy metals (HMs) in agricultural soils. The source apportionment results revealed by a multilinear engine model were incorporated into the geochemical indexes and the probabilistic health risk assessment models for identifying the source-oriented risks of HMs in the environment. High-throughput sequencing-based metagenomic assembly analysis was used for characterizing the prevalence and dissemination risk of antibiotic resistomes and their associations with the geochemical enrichment of HMs in the soils. Results showed agricultural and industrial activities were the main sources of HMs in the environment. Although the soils were contaminated moderately by HMs and the health risks posed by soil metals were negligible for both adult and children, source-oriented risk evaluation suggested agricultural activities contributed relatively higher contamination and health risks than the other sources. Notably, abundant and diverse antibiotic resistant genes, mobile gene elements, virulence factors, and antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens were identified in the agricultural soils, as well as their co-occurrences on the same contigs, implying a non-negligible resistome risk. Further, statistical and network analyses showed the geochemical enrichment of HMs exerted significant effects on the antibiotic resistomes in the environment.

Automated summary

A new integrated multidisciplinary-based framework was proposed to better understand the environmental risks of heavy metals in agricultural soils. Agricultural and industrial activities were identified as the main sources of heavy metals in the environment. The geochemical enrichment of heavy metals was found to have significant effects on the antibiotic resistomes in the environment.