Prevalence of Clinically Relevant Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Surface Water Samples Collected from Germany and Australia

Abstract

The prevalence and proliferation of antibiotic resistant bacteria is profoundly important to human health, but the extent to which aquatic environments contribute toward the dissemination of antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) is poorly understood. The prevalence of 24 ARGs active against eight antibiotic classes (β-lactams, aminoglycosides, glycopeptides, chloramphenicols, tetracycline, macrolides, trimethoprim, and sulfonamides) was evaluated in surface water samples collected from Germany and Australia with culture independent methods. The ARGs most frequently detected both in Germany and Australia were sulI, sulII (77-100%), and dfrA1 (43-55%) which code for resistance to sulfonamide and trimethoprim. Macrolides resistance gene ermB was relatively more prevalent in the surface water from Germany (68%) than Australia (18%). In contrast, the chloramphenicol resistance gene catII was more frequently detected in Australia (64%) than Germany (9%). Similarly, β-lactams resistance gene ampC was more prevalent in the samples from Australia (36%) than Germany (19%). This study highlights wide distribution of ARGs for sulfonamide, trimethoprim, macroline, β-lactams and chloramphenicol in the aquatic ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems can therefore be reservoirs of ARGs genes which could potentially be transferred from commensal microorganisms to human pathogens.

Antibiotic resistance and virulence genes in coliform water isolates

“…Altogether, antibiotic resistant Klebsiella spp. seems to be more prevalent in the River Rhine water (Stoll et al, 2012). Whereas, in a Chinese study, beta lactamase genes (blaTEM, blaSHV, blaOXY, blaCTX, and blaOXY) were detected in ampicillin resistant E. coli isolates collected from Jinsha Lake (China).…”

“…The ARGs included sulfonamide resistance genes (sul1 and sul2), trimethoprim resistance genes (dfrA1, dfrA12, dfrA13), beta-lactam resistance genes (ampC, blaTEM, blaSHV and blaPSE-1) and tetracycline resistance genes (tet(A), tet(B), tet(C), and tet(M)). These ARGs were selected due to their reported presence in River Rhine samples (Stoll et al, 2012). Previously published primer sets were used for the PCR amplification of ARGs (Stoll et al, 2012).…”

“…These ARGs were selected due to their reported presence in River Rhine samples (Stoll et al, 2012). Previously published primer sets were used for the PCR amplification of ARGs (Stoll et al, 2012).…”

“…However, widespread application of antibiotics in human and veterinary medicine has led to the emergence, selection, and dissemination of antibiotic resistant bacteria and genes encoding for antibiotic resistance in different environmental compartments such as surface water (Zhang et al, 2015;Stoll et al, 2012), groundwater (Li et al, 2014), drinking water (Schwartz et al, 2003;Guo et al, 2014) and sediments (Rosas et al, 2015) throughout the world. Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and virulence genes (VGs) are emerging environmental contaminants (Pruden et al, 2006;Haack et al, 2009).…”

Impact of reclaimed water irrigation on antibiotic resistance in public parks, Beijing, China

“…However, most antibiotics are poorly absorbed in both animals and humans, and a large proportion of antibiotics can be excreted in an unaltered state (Kumar et al, 2005) and then dispersed into environment. Indeed, antibiotics have been detected in municipal sewage , hospital wastewater (Lindberg et al, 2004), surface water Stoll et al, 2012), groundwater (Lindsey et al, 2001), as well as in soil, sediment and sludge samples (Kim and Carlson, 2007). Residual antibiotics may exert selection pressure on environmental microorganisms, contributing to proliferating antibiotic resistance in microorganisms (Martinez, 2009).…”