Examining the Taxonomic Distribution of Tetracycline Resistance in a Wastewater Plant

Overview

Journal Sustain Microbiol

Publisher Oxford University Press

Date 2024 Feb 6

PMID 38317688

Authors

Howard Ochman

Erik M Quandt

Neil Gottell

Jack A Gilbert

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Microbial communities serve as reservoirs of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and facilitate the dissemination of these genes to bacteria that infect humans. Relatively little is known about the taxonomic distribution of bacteria harboring ARGs in these reservoirs and the avenues of transmission due to the technical hurdles associated with characterizing the contents of complex microbial populations and the assignment of genes to particular genomes. Focusing on the array of tetracycline resistance (Tc) genes in the primary and secondary phases of wastewater treatment, 17 of the 22 assayed Tc genes were detected in at least one sample. We then applied emulsion, paired isolation, and concatenation PCR (epicPCR) to link tetracycline resistance genes to specific bacterial hosts. Whereas Tc genes tend to vary in their distributions among bacterial taxa according to their modes of action, there were numerous instances in which a particular Tc gene was associated with a host that was distantly related to all other bacteria bearing the same gene, including several hosts not previously identified. Tc genes are far less host-restricted than previously assumed, indicating that complex microbial communities serve as settings where ARGs are spread among divergent bacterial phyla.

Citing Articles

Heterogeneous Antibiotic Resistance Gene Removal Impedes Evaluation of Constructed Wetlands for Effective Greywater Treatment.

Itzhari D, Shuai W, Hartmann E, Ronen Z Antibiotics (Basel). 2024; 13(4).

PMID: 38666991 PMC: 11047525. DOI: 10.3390/antibiotics13040315.

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