摘要
      河口环境面临着来自沿海地区和内陆的污染，是抗生素耐药性基因（ARGs）的重要汇点。然而，人们对ARGs的时空模式及其在河口环境中的主要约束条件知之甚少。在这里，我们利用宏基因组学研究了中国6个气候区16个河口在旱季和雨季的ARG谱，并解开了它们与环境约束的关系。我们的研究结果表明，旱季的ARG丰度、丰富度和多样性高于雨季，并且ARG丰度随纬度呈增加趋势。ARGs的流行在很大程度上受人类活动、可移动基因元素、微生物群落、抗生素残留、物理化学性质和气候变量的驱动。其中，气候变量和人类活动是最重要的因素，分别占观测ARGs总方差的44%和36%。形成ARG最重要的气候变量是温度，其中温度的升高与ARG的降低有关。我们的研究结果强调，ARGs在河口环境中的流行将由人类活动和气候共同驱动，并表明了在未来不断变化的气候和社会经济发展下ARGs的动态。
Abstract
Estuarine environments faced with contaminations from coastal zones and the inland are vital sinks of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). However, little is known about the temporal-spatial pattern of ARGs and its predominant constraints in estuarine environments. Here, we leveraged metagenomics to investigate ARG profiles from 16 China's estuaries across 6 climate zones in dry and wet seasons, and disentangled their relationships with environmental constraints. Our results revealed that ARG abundance, richness, and diversity in dry season were higher than those in wet season, and ARG abundance exhibited an increasing trend with latitude. The prevalence of ARGs was significantly driven by human activities, mobile gene elements, microbial communities, antibiotic residuals, physicochemical properties, and climatic variables. Among which, climatic variables and human activities ranked the most important factors, contributing 44% and 36% of the total variance of observed ARGs, respectively. The most important climatic variable shaping ARGs is temperature, where increasing temperature is associated with decreased ARGs. Our results highlight that the prevalence of ARGs in estuarine environments would be co-driven by anthropogenic activities and climate, and suggest the dynamics of ARGs under future changing climate and socioeconomic development.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749122002299