Networking and co-occurrence of virulent and multidrug resistant environmental bacteria in different aquatic systems : A gap in MDR-virulence transfer?

Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved..

Co-occurrence of resistance and virulence is often overlooked in aquatic bacteria as environmental reservoirs, while transmission of these characteristics to clinically significant strains present unforeseen problems in future. In this investigation, environmental bacteria identified concurrently from multiple aquatic habitats viz., groundwater, canal, river and coastal waters were profiled for antibiotic resistance, metal tolerance, virulence factors and genes coding for these determinants. Strains from polluted river and canal exhibited higher resistance and virulence, especially Pseudomonas gessardii and P. fluorescens displayed high antibiotic resistance index (ARI > 0.6-0.8) with Alkaline Protease and Phospholipase production. Opportunistic pathogens including Vibrio parahaemolyticus, V. alginolyticus, V. vulnificus, Corynebacterium and Comamonas testosteroni expressed all three virulence factors with relatively low resistance. However, V. vulnificus and V. alginolyticus exhibited multiclass antibiotic resistance (5/6 classes). Metagenomic analysis revealed that genes corresponding to beta-lactam resistance were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in freshwater than seawater, while multidrug resistance gene were higher (p < 0.05) in seawater. In all aquatic bodies, abundant virulence genes belonged to secretion system proteins followed by motility related genes. Culturable bacteria revealed differential distribution of positive and negative correlation between 31 targeted genes with expressed resistance and virulence. Among Acinetobacter, significant positive correlation was found between Phospholipase production, other virulence genes (OVGs) and resistance to DNA Synthesis Inhibitors (DSI). In Pseudomonas, positive correlation was detected between toxin genes (toxA, eta, hlyA and stx) and resistance to cell wall synthesis inhibitors (CSI) as well as with OVGs and adhesion genes (eae, afa, papC and papA). Network analysis displayed unique clustering of genes ncc, arsB, strA, merA and intI dominated by non-pathogens and distinct clustering of genes pho, erm, nfsA, trh, lasB, tdh and invA by Vibrio. This investigation extends insight on co-occurring resistance and virulence in aquatic reservoir bacteria that could pose serious threats to public health in future.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2023

Erschienen:

2023

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:857

Enthalten in:

The Science of the total environment - 857(2023), Pt 1 vom: 20. Jan., Seite 159221

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Saravanakumar, C [VerfasserIn]
Neethu, C S [VerfasserIn]
Purvaja, R [VerfasserIn]
Sunantha, G [VerfasserIn]
Robin, R S [VerfasserIn]
Ramesh, R [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Anti-Bacterial Agents
Antibiotic resistance
EC 3.1.-
Environmental bacteria
Journal Article
Metal tolerance
Networking
Phospholipases
Resistance gene
Virulence
Virulence Factors

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 29.11.2022

Date Revised 29.11.2022

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159221

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM347221998