Bacteriophages from faecal contamination are an important reservoir for AMR in aquatic environments.

Autor: Nolan TM; UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, UCD Earth Institute and UCD Conway Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland., Sala-Comorera L; UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, UCD Earth Institute and UCD Conway Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland., Reynolds LJ; UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, UCD Earth Institute and UCD Conway Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland., Martin NA; UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, UCD Earth Institute and UCD Conway Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland., Stephens JH; UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, UCD Earth Institute and UCD Conway Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland., O'Hare GMP; School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland., O'Sullivan JJ; UCD School of Civil Engineering, UCD Dooge Centre for Water Resources Research and UCD Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland., Meijer WG; UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, UCD Earth Institute and UCD Conway Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland. Electronic address: wim.meijer@ucd.ie.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2023 Nov 20; Vol. 900, pp. 165490. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jul 22.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165490
Abstrakt: Bacteriophages have been shown to play an important role in harbouring and propagating antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Faecal matter contains high levels of phages, suggesting that faecal contamination of water bodies may lead to increased antimicrobial resistance (AMR) levels due to increased phage loading in aquatic environments. In this study, we assessed whether faecal pollution of three rivers (Rivers Liffey, Tolka, and Dodder) was responsible for increased levels of ARGs in phage particles using established phage-faecal markers, focusing on four ARGs (bla TEM , tet(O), qnrS, and sul1). We observed all four ARGs in phage fractions in all three rivers, with ARGs more frequently observed in agricultural and urban sampling sites compared to their source. These findings highlight the role of faecal pollution in environmental AMR and the impact of agricultural and urban activities on water quality. Furthermore, our results suggest the importance of including phages as indicators when assessing environmental AMR, as they serve as significant reservoirs of resistance genes in aquatic environments. This study provides important insights into the role of faecal pollution and phages in the prevalence of AMR in the environment and the need for their inclusion in future studies to provide a comprehensive understanding of environmental AMR.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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