摘要
      采矿是对环境影响最广泛的人类活动之一，受采矿影响的环境以高水平的金属为特征，这些金属可以共同选择微生物中的抗生素抗性基因（ARGs）。然而，对受采矿影响的环境中的ARG仍知之甚少。在这里，我们利用全球范围的数据收集和中国的两次国家采样工作产生的272个宏基因组，对全球此类环境中的ARGs进行了全面研究。在全球分布的研究矿场中，ARGs的平均总丰度为1572倍/千兆碱基，与城市污水相当，但远高于淡水沉积物。多药耐药基因占ARG总丰度的40%，倾向于与多金属耐药基因共存，并且具有高度流动性（例如，平均16%出现在质粒上）。在1848个高质量的宏基因组组装基因组（MAG）中，85%携带至少一个多药耐药基因和一个多金属耐药基因。这些高质量的携带ARG的MAG显著扩大了ARG宿主的系统发育多样性，为古菌结构域和三个细菌门提供了携带ARG MAG的第一个代表。此外，54个高质量携带ARG的MAG被确定为潜在病原体。我们的研究结果表明，世界各地受采矿影响的环境是多药耐药性基因的研究热点。
Abstract
Mining is among the human activities with widest environmental impacts, and mining-impacted environments are characterized by high levels of metals that can co-select for antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in microorganisms. However, ARGs in mining-impacted environments are still poorly understood. Here, we conducted a comprehensive study of ARGs in such environments worldwide, taking advantage of 272 metagenomes generated from a global-scale data collection and two national sampling efforts in China. The average total abundance of the ARGs in globally distributed studied mine sites was 1572 times per gigabase, being rivaling that of urban sewage but much higher than that of freshwater sediments. Multidrug resistance genes accounted for 40% of the total ARG abundance, tended to co-occur with multimetal resistance genes, and were highly mobile (e.g. on average 16% occurring on plasmids). Among the 1848 high-quality metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), 85% carried at least one multidrug resistance gene plus one multimetal resistance gene. These high-quality ARG-carrying MAGs considerably expanded the phylogenetic diversity of ARG hosts, providing the first representatives of ARG-carrying MAGs for the Archaea domain and three bacterial phyla. Moreover, 54 high-quality ARG-carrying MAGs were identified as potential pathogens. Our findings suggest that mining-impacted environments worldwide are underexplored hotspots of multidrug resistance genes.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-022-01258-z