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DISTRIBUTION OF ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE GENES IN THE ENVIRONMENT:

THE ROLE OF MINERAL FACILITATED HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER

Combining recent research across disciplines, I see evidence that minerals hold a high and unrecognized potential for enhancing the distribution of the ARg in the environment. Adsorption of ARg to minerals significantly increases the ARg’s lifetime and facilitates their distribution by sedimentary transport processes. In addition, minerals also serve as a) sites for horizontal gene transfer (HGT), b) platforms for microbial growth and, hence 3) act as hot spots for propagation of adsorbed ARg to other microbes. However, some minerals and ARg are bound more strongly than others and various bacteria have different affinities toward various minerals. Those variations in affinity are poorly quantified but vital for predicting the distribution of ARg in the environment.

bug colony.png

Bacterial colony formation.

Image by Lisselotte Jauffred (collaborator from NBI)

The spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARg) is a worldwide health risk1 and is no longer only a clinical issue. Vast reservoirs of ARg are found in natural environments2–4 such as soils, sediments and oceans. The emergence and release of ARg to the environment is in particular caused by extended use of antibiotics in farming, e.g. where the genes dissipate from the manure.5 Once in the environment, the ARg are surprisingly rapidly propagated. It is well known that the ARg are distributed to neighbour bacteria through processes of both cell sharing or through horizontal gene transfer (HGT) where one species acquirer resistance from another.6,7 Most HGT responsible for the spread of ARg are assumed to be through direct microbe-microbe contact. However, I find that the outcome of non-contact transfer is grossly underestimated. In the HGT mechanism called “Transformation”, free ARg in suspension or adsorbed to a mineral can be picked up and incorporated into non-related organisms. Considering that free DNA only can survive for a few weeks in sea- and freshwater environments,8–10 any HGT from free DNA can rightly be assumed to be local, but if the DNA gets adsorbed to a mineral, it can survive for several hundred thousands of years.11–14 If this also holds for ARg, then minerals offer a potent mechanism for distributing ARg through our environments my means of sedimentary processes.

KKS

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- Feb 8, 2021

Meet our new Frontiers Research topic:

Interactions Between Microbes, Minerals, and Molecules Across Scales and Time. link

Keywords: mineral nucleation, mineral precipitation, microbe, crystal growth, biofilms, biogeochemistry, DNA, RNA

The aim of the Research Topic is to highlight new advances in our understanding of mineral-microbe-molecule interactions and how characterization at the molecular- to nanometer-level can provide inferences on tracing past and current biota as well as understanding and potentially manipulating contemporary geomicrobiological processes in pristine, contaminated, and engineered environments. The field of geomicrobiology has long embraced inter- and trans-disciplinary research approaches to tackle difficult problems, and we hope to feature such novel strategies in this research topic.

Mineralized cell. Image credit: Jeremiah Paul Shuster

The aim of the Research Topic is to highlight new advances in our understanding of mineral-microbe-molecule interactions and how characterization at the molecular- to nanometer-level can provide inferences on tracing past and current biota as well as understanding and potentially manipulating contemporary geomicrobiological processes in pristine, contaminated, and engineered environments. The field of geomicrobiology has long embraced inter- and trans-disciplinary research approaches to tackle difficult problems, and we hope to feature such novel strategies in this research topic.

Suggestions for contributions include (but are not limited to): • The role of organic materials in mineral nucleation as well as dissolution processes; • The influence of minerals on the chemical and structural preservation of molecules, microbial cells and biofilms; • Microbe-mineral and microbe-metal electron transfer processes; • Nucleic acid-mineral interactions and DNA and RNA preservation; and • Microbial manipulation of mineral formation for engineering applications. We encourage submissions on field- or laboratory-based, and modelling studies involving the research frontiers of microbe, mineral and molecule interactions, particularly developments in the combined use of molecular microbiology, bioinformatics, nano- to macro-scale modelling techniques, or high-resolution microscopy and spectroscopy techniques.

Editorial team:

Andrew C Mitchell, University of Aberystwyth

Maria Dittrich, University of Toronto Scarborough

Kevin Rosso, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Jeremiah Paul Shuster, University of Adelaide

Karina K. Sand, University of Copenhagen

ABSTRACT DEADLINE 26th OF MARCH 2021

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