Abstract

The increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria has raised global concern regarding the future effectiveness of antibiotics. Human activities that influence microbial communities and environmental resistomes can generate additional risks to human health. In this work, we characterized aquatic microbial communities and their resistomes in samples collected at three sites along the Bogotá River and from wastewaters at three city hospitals, and investigated community profiles and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) as a function of anthropogenic contamination. The presence of antibiotics and other commonly used drugs increased in locations highly impacted by human activities, while the diverse microbial communities varied among sites and sampling times, separating upstream river samples from more contaminated hospital and river samples. Clinically relevant antibiotic resistant pathogens and ARGs were more abundant in contaminated water samples. Tracking of resistant determinants to upstream river waters and city sources suggested that human activities foster the spread of ARGs, some of which were co-localized with mobile genetic elements in assembled metagenomic contigs. Human contamination of this water ecosystem changed both community structure and environmental resistomes that can pose a risk to human health.

Details

Title
Bogotá River anthropogenic contamination alters microbial communities and promotes spread of antibiotic resistance genes
Author
Posada-Perlaza, Carlos Eduardo 1 ; Ramírez-Rojas, Adán 2 ; Porras, Paola 3 ; Adu-Oppong, Boahemaa 4 ; Botero-Coy, Ana-María 5 ; Hernández, Félix 5   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Anzola, Juan M 2 ; Díaz, Lorena 3 ; Dantas, Gautam 6   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Reyes, Alejandro 7   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; María Mercedes Zambrano 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

1  Computational Biology and Microbial Ecology Group, Department of Biological Sciences, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia; Max Planck Tandem Group in Computational Biology, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia; Molecular Genetics and Bioinformatics, Corporación CorpoGen, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia 
2  Molecular Genetics and Bioinformatics, Corporación CorpoGen, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia 
3  Molecular Genetics and Antimicrobial Resistance Unit, International Center for Microbial Genomics, Universidad El Bosque, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia 
4  Center for Genome Science and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA 
5  Research Institute for Pesticides and Water, University Jaume I, Castellón, Spain 
6  Center for Genome Science and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA; Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA; Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA 
7  Computational Biology and Microbial Ecology Group, Department of Biological Sciences, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia; Max Planck Tandem Group in Computational Biology, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia; Center for Genome Science and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA 
Pages
1-13
Publication year
2019
Publication date
Aug 2019
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-48200-6
ProQuest document ID
2272720557
Copyright
© 2019. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.