Can the legacy of industrial pollution influence antimicrobial resistance in estuarine sediments?

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) represents a major global health threat, as well as a major hazard to sustainable economic development and national security. It remains, therefore, vital that current research aligns to policy development and implementation to alleviate a potential crisis. One must consider, for example, whether drivers of antibiotic resistance can be controlled in the future, or have they already accumulated in the past, whether from antibiotics and/or other pollutants? Unfortunately, industrial heritage and its pollution impact on the prevalence of environmental AMR have largely been ignored. Focussing on industrialised estuaries, we demonstrate that anthropogenic pollution inputs in addition to the natural diurnal environmental conditions can sufficiently create stressful conditions to the microbiome and thus promote selective pressures to shift the resistome (i.e., collection of resistance traits in the microbiological community). Unfortunately, the bacteria's survival mechanisms, via co-selective pressures, can affect their susceptibility to antibiotics. This review highlights the complexity of estuarine environments, using two key contaminant groups (metals/toxic elements and polyaromatic hydrocarbons), through which a variety of possible chemical and biological pollutant stressors can promote the emergence and dissemination of antimicrobial resistance. We find compelling divers to call on more focused research on historically disrupted ecosystems, in propagating AMR in the real world.

The legacy of industrial pollution in estuarine sediments: spatial and temporal variability implications for ecosystem stress

“…In our study the uppermost sediments were 'jelly-like' in their composition and are constantly being washed which could reduce higher PTE concentrations in areas where there are reduced industrial inputs. This therefore has implications for a potential increase in antimicrobial resistance due to exposure of historical pollution at depth (Rodgers et al 2018). The time difference between our campaign and previous reports, particularly for Cr, shows the dynamic nature of the system with regard to complexity and elemental movement.…”

“…The comparison showed that values from this study exceeded the geochemical baseline values and were more comparable to the Clyde Estuary baseline study results, suggesting that levels exceeding the baseline are likely affected by anthropogenic inputs. As previously reported, estuarine sediments in industrialised regions create environmentally stressful conditions for the sediment microbiome (Rodgers et al 2018); we therefore focussed on 'stressors' and concentrations above the threshold effect level (TEL) and probable effect level (PEL). The TEL represents the concentration below which adverse effects are unlikely to occur, whereas the PEL defines the level in which adverse effects are expected to occur (Macdonald et al 2000).…”

“…These changes could result in toxicologically stressful environments that, in turn, could be related to changes in microbiome and/or resistance-e.g. development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) (Rodgers et al 2018). Recovery of estuaries from long-term anthropogenic disruption is understood in some detail for higher trophic levels and within that context shows great variation from months to decades depending on biological species or system components (Borja et al 2010).…”

Bacteria From the Multi-Contaminated Tinto River Estuary (SW, Spain) Show High Multi-Resistance to Antibiotics and Point to Paenibacillus spp. as Antibiotic-Resistance-Dissemination Players

“…The concentration of metals in the estuarine water is much lower than what is usually found in the Tinto River, which is probably the result of the dilution effect from seawater entry. Also, the higher pH of the water could trigger the precipitation of some metals (Rodgers et al, 2019). The higher concentration of phosphor in H1S versus H2S may be due to the input of phosphogypsum-rich wastewater from a nearby fertilizer plant (Sainz et al, 2004), which recently was shown to contaminate the estuary with heavy metals through a weathering process (Papaslioti et al, 2018).…”

“…Higher MDR levels were found in isolates from sediments than from those in waters when considering all isolates from the estuary (H), or each individual zone (H1 or H2). This difference between phases could be due to the lower mobility of sediments and the possible accumulation of antibiotics, metals, or other pollutants (including ARGs) that may facilitate the selection of resistant bacterial populations, as has been proposed for other systems (Rodgers et al, 2019). Furthermore, the accumulation of resistant bacteria in sediments could facilitate bacterial cell contact; and, therefore, to increase the efficiency of HGT (Zhang et al, 2018).…”