Novobiocin Sodium

Discharge of pharmaceutical wastewater significantly affects the receiving environments. However, the development of antibiotic resistance and microbial enzymatic degradation in wastewater-receiving soils and rivers remains unclear. This study investigated a sulfonamide-producing factory to explore the distribution of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the receiving river and soil environments (0-100 cm depth), and the potential hosts of sadABC genes (sulfonamide-degrading genes) as well as their phylogenetic characterization. We identified plentiful ARGs (28 types and 1065 subtypes) and their hosts (30 phyla and 340 MAGs) in three media (surface water, sediment, and soil). Results indicated that the abundances of total resistome in water and sediment of receiving river (0-1.5 km) were higher than the global river resistome median levels. Wastewater significantly affected the soil resistome, leading to an average 5-fold increase in ARG abundance, and a 22-fold enrichment of sulfonamide ARGs. The abundance and diversity of soil resistome decreased significantly with depth, and the abundance was below the global soil resistome median level at the depth greater than 20 cm. The detection of 17 risk rank I ARGs and the enrichment of multidrug-resistant pathogenic bacteria in soil and river highlighted the resistance risks in the environments. Notably, 73 sadABC-carrying contigs were detected, which were mainly hosted by Microbacteriaceae and some other previously unreported bacteria, such as Mycobacteriaceae spp. The findings offer valuable insights into antimicrobial resistance (AMR) risk assessment and the bioremediation of sulfonamides pollution in the environment affected by pharmaceutical wastewater.

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are widely recognized as hazardous materials that pose risks to public health. The core resistome, with its low ARG diversity yet accounting for the majority of the total ARG abundance, dominating the profile of antibiotic resistance. In this study, nationwide wastewater surveillance in China using metagenomic sequencing also identified a core resistome of 117 ARGs that accounted for 69.6 % of the total abundance. The emphasis of the work was to examine the rare resistome that included 1503 ARGs outside the core resistome. The abundances of clinically relevant ARG types (e.g., β-lactams and quinolones) were significantly higher in the rare resistome compared to the core resistome. Human pathogen-related ARGs were much greater in subtype number (96 vs. 34) and significantly higher in abundance (67.0 % vs. 33.0 %) in the rare relative to the core resistome, indicating that the rare resistome was the major contributor to the human pathogen resistome. The majority of ARG types accounting for the highest proportions of the rare resistome were plasmid-originated (65.5 %-100 %). In addition, human pathogen-related ARGs also had a significantly higher proportion of plasmid sources than non-pathogen ARGs, further highlighting their importance in wastewater-based surveillance.