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.

KARINA K. SAND

RESOURCES ON DIVERSITY

Sections on:

Gender, Toward a racially just workplace and Actions

GENDER

Why do I still have to dress down to look like Clark Kent to make it in academia?

Day-to-day work of diversity and inclusion

What it takes for women to be heard

Gender inequity in speaking opportunities (American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting)

Diversity in finalist pool influence hiring decisions

Why we need difficult women

Diversity makes us smarter

Interrupt Bias on Your Team

If you want more women in your group showcase the ones you have and do not let them do kitchen duties!

Men are typically described by words that refer to behavior, while adjectives ascribed to women tend to be associated with physical appearance.

Research in gender and equality

Denmark’s exemplary gender balance trips up in science. "its gender balance in science lags embarrassingly behind that in many other European Union countries."

Bring on bias awareness to improve gender and ethnicity balance.

Gender quotas increase the competence of organisations by leading to the displacement of mediocre men

Thank you: The most influential people in global policy 2019

Do we need to adapt men´s grant writing styles to make it?

Cards developed to help convey and id gender bias in the workplace.

Conveying it is OK to have a family

Nudging for inclusion

Female scientists get less money and staff for their first labs

Bias in teaching and learning

Gender differences in peer review

How some men are challenging gender inequity in the lab

How the entire scientific community can confront gender bias in the workplace

How female scientists can confront gender bias in the workplace

Men and women need different kinds of networks to succeed

Beregning: Kvinder burde få mange flere Nobelpriser

How the leadership can confront gender bias in the workplace

Gender equality in grant making. What can a funder do?

The gender data gap

A gendered world will produce a gendered brain

Evaluate projects, not people

Why don't people like the sound of "woman president"?

War of words.
Women are judged by the way they speak

Patchy progress on fixing global gender disparities in science

Women postdocs less likely than men to get a glowing reference

6 Things Successful Women in STEM Have in Common

To learn inclusion skills, make it personal

10 Female Scientists who changed the world

The Lancet, advancing women in science, medicine and global health

Why diversity matters

Repository of women in STEM resources

Women in the workplace - McKinsey & Company

MINORITIES

(AND IN-BETWEENS)

Reimbursement policies make academia less inclusive

A disadvantaged background doesn’t have to be a barrier to success

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TOWARD A RACIALLY JUST WORKPLACE

Resources targeted to educate white people

Science and Colonialism

-Overviews

-Earth Sciences and Colonialism

-Other Sciences and Colonialism

-Science and Colonialism in Specific Regions

-Modern Legacies

-Doing Science Now: Occupied Land, Indigenous Partnerships, Possibilities of Decolonization?

"Racialization, Racism, and Anti-Racism in the Nordic Countries”, edited by Peter Hervik

How does anti-Black racism show up in academia

Toward a racially just workplace

Day-to-day work of diversity and inclusion

How Accountable Business Leaders Are Called To Tackle Racism

ACTIONS

W O R K I N P R O G R E S S

Educate through the game of gender bias:

Women in Science and Engineering

DAY TO DAY WORK:

Regularly ask yourself/your team key questions such as:

-How am I educating myself and my stakeholders about structural racism?

-How am I holding space to allow for conversations about structural racism in my company?

-What practices does my company have in place to support Black and People of Color team members?

-How am I supporting Black and People of Color business leaders that are in the B Corp community or other communities I’m a part of?

-How am I supporting civic engagement to hold public leaders accountable and tackle structural racism in our systems of government?