Swine farm groundwater is a hidden hotspot for antibiotic-resistant pathogenic Acinetobacter

Gao, F.-Z. et al. (2023) Swine farm groundwater is a hidden hotspot for antibiotic-resistant pathogenic Acinetobacter. ISME Communications, 3, 34. (doi: 10.1038/s43705-023-00240-w) (PMID:37081217) (PMCID:PMC10119254)

Abstract

Acinetobacter is present in the livestock environment, but little is known about their antibiotic resistance and pathogenic species in the farm groundwater. Here we investigated antibiotic resistance of Acinetobacter in the swine farm groundwater (JZPG) and residential groundwater (JZG) of a swine farming village, in comparison to a nearby (3.5 km) non-farming village (WTG) using metagenomic and culture-based approaches. Results showed that the abundance of antibiotic resistome in some JZG and all JZPG (~3.4 copies/16S rRNA gene) was higher than that in WTG (~0.7 copies/16S rRNA gene), indicating the influence of farming activities on both groundwater types. Acinetobacter accounted for ~95.7% of the bacteria in JZG and JZPG, but only ~8.0% in WTG. They were potential hosts of ~95.6% of the resistome in farm affected groundwater, which includes 99 ARG subtypes against 23 antibiotic classes. These ARGs were associated with diverse intrinsic and acquired resistance mechanisms, and the predominant ARGs were tetracyclines and fluoroquinolones resistance genes. Metagenomic binning analysis elucidated that non-baumannii Acinetobacter including A. oleivorans, A. beijerinckii, A. seifertii, A. bereziniae and A. modestus might pose environmental risks because of multidrug resistance, pathogenicity and massive existence in the groundwater. Antibiotic susceptibility tests showed that the isolated strains were resistant to multiple antibiotics including sulfamethoxazole (resistance ratio: 96.2%), levofloxacin (42.5%), gatifloxacin (39.0%), ciprofloxacin (32.6%), tetracycline (32.0%), doxycycline (29.0%) and ampicillin (12.0%) as well as last-resort polymyxin B (31.7%), colistin (24.1%) and tigecycline (4.1%). The findings highlight potential prevalence of groundwater-borne antibiotic-resistant pathogenic Acinetobacter in the livestock environment.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 42030703, U1701242 and 42177226), and National Key Research and Development Program of China (2020YFC1806901), as well as Chinese Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2022M711215) and Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2019A1515110131).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Huang, Ms Xinyi
• Authors: Gao, F.-Z., He, L.-Y., Chen, X., Chen, J.-L., Yi, X., He, L.-X., Huang, X.-Y., Chen, Z.-Y., Bai, H., Zhang, M., Liu, Y.-S., and Ying, G.-G.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Infection & Immunity > Centre for Virus Research
• Journal Name: ISME Communications
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• ISSN: 2730-6151
• ISSN (Online): 2730-6151
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 The Authors
• First Published: First published in ISME Communications 3: 34
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License