RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Microbiome diversity: A barrier to the environmental spread of antimicrobial resistance?
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2023.03.30.534382
DO 10.1101/2023.03.30.534382
A1 Uli Klümper
A1 Giulia Gionchetta
A1 Elisa C. P. Catao
A1 Xavier Bellanger
A1 Irina Dielacher
A1 Peiju Fang
A1 Sonia Galazka
A1 Agata Goryluk-Salmonowicz
A1 David Kneis
A1 Uchechi Okoroafor
A1 Elena Radu
A1 Mateusz Szadziul
A1 Edina Szekeres
A1 Adela Teban-Man
A1 Cristian Coman
A1 Norbert Kreuzinger
A1 Magdalena Popowska
A1 Julia Vierheilig
A1 Fiona Walsh
A1 Markus Woegerbauer
A1 Helmut Bürgmann
A1 Christophe Merlin
A1 Thomas U. Berendonk
YR 2023
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/04/25/2023.03.30.534382.abstract
AB Background In the environment, microbial communities are constantly exposed to invasion by antimicrobial resistant bacteria (ARB) and their associated antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) that were enriched in the anthroposphere. A successful invader has to overcome the biotic resilience of the habitat, which is more difficult with increasing biodiversity. The capacity to exploit resources in a given habitat is enhanced when communities exhibit greater diversity, reducing opportunities for invaders, leading to a lower persistence. In the context of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) dissemination, exogenous ARB reaching a natural community may persist longer if the biodiversity of the autochthonous community is low, increasing the chance of ARGs to transfer to community members. Reciprocally, high microbial diversity could serve as a natural long-term barrier towards invasion by ARB and ARGs.Results To test this hypothesis, a sampling campaign across seven European countries was carried out to obtain 172 environmental samples from sites with low anthropogenic impact. Samples were collected from contrasting environments: stationary structured forest soils, or dynamic river biofilms and sediments. Microbial diversity and relative abundance of 27 ARGs and 5 mobile genetic element marker genes were determined. In soils, higher diversity, evenness and richness were all significantly negatively correlated with the relative abundance of the majority (>85%) of ARGs. Furthermore, the number of detected ARGs per sample was inversely correlated with diversity. However, no such effects were found for the more dynamic, regularly mixed rivers. Conclusions: In conclusion, we demonstrate that diversity can serve as barrier towards AMR dissemination in the environment. This effect is mainly observed in stationary, structured environments, where long-term, diversity-based resilience against invasion can evolve. Such barrier effects can in the future be exploited to limit the environmental proliferation of AMR.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.