Widespread prevalence of multidrug and pandrug-resistant bacteria has prompted substantial concern over the global dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Environmental compartments can behave as genetic reservoirs and hotspots, wherein resistance genes can accumulate and be laterally transferred to clinically relevant pathogens. In this work, we explore ARG levels in three environmental media distributed throughout four cities in California and demonstrate that there exist city-to-city disparities in soil and drinking water levels. Statistically significant differences in ARG levels were identified in soil, where differences in blaSHV gene levels were the most striking-- the highest levels were observed in Bakersfield (6.0 x 10-2 copies/16S rRNA copies and 2.6 x 106 copies/g of soil), followed by San Diego (1.8 x 10-3 copies/16S rRNA copies and 3.0 x 104 copies/g of soil), Fresno (1.8 x 10-5 copies/16S rRNA copies and 8.5 x 102 copies/g of soil) and Los Angeles (5.8 x 10-6 copies/16S rRNA copies and 5.6 x 102 copies/g of soil). In addition, ARG levels in the air, water, and soil of each city are contextualized in relation to globally reported levels and illustrate that individual genes are not necessarily predictors for the environmental resistome as a whole. This study serves as the largest survey of ARGs to date and proposes a structure for future antibiotic resistance gene level reporting.

Disparate antibiotic resistance gene levels revealed across four major cities in California: A survey in drinking water, air, and soil at 24 public parks

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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