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Ginn O, Nichols D, Rocha-Melogno L, Bivins A, Berendes D, Soria F, Andrade M, Deshusses MA, Bergin M, Brown J. Antimicrobial resistance genes are enriched in aerosols near impacted urban surface waters in La Paz, Bolivia. Environ Res 2021; 194:110730. [PMID: 33444611 PMCID: PMC10906805 DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2021.110730] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/08/2020] [Revised: 01/05/2021] [Accepted: 01/06/2021] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Antibiotic resistance poses a major global health threat. Understanding emergence and dissemination of antibiotic resistance in environmental media is critical to the design of control strategies. Because antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) may be aerosolized from contaminated point sources and disseminated more widely in localized environments, we assessed ARGs in aerosols in urban La Paz, Bolivia, where wastewater flows in engineered surface water channels through the densely populated urban core. We quantified key ARGs and a mobile integron (MI) via ddPCR and E. coli spp. as a fecal indicator by culture over two years during both the rainy and dry seasons in sites near wastewater flows. ARG targets represented major antibiotic groups-tetracyclines (tetA), fluoroquinolines (qnrB), and beta-lactams (blaTEM)-and an MI (intI1) represented the potential for mobility of genetic material. Most air samples (82%) had detectable targets above the experimentally determined LOD: most commonly blaTEM and intI1 (68% and 47% respectively) followed by tetA and qnrB (17% and 11% respectively). ARG and MI densities in positive air samples ranged from 1.3 × 101 to 6.6 × 104 gene copies/m3 air. Additionally, we detected culturable E. coli in the air (52% of samples <1 km from impacted surface waters) with an average density of 11 CFU/m3 in positive samples. We observed decreasing density of blaTEM with increasing distance up to 150 m from impacted surface waters. To our knowledge this is the first study conducting absolute quantification and a spatial analysis of ARGs and MIs in ambient urban air of a city with contaminated surface waters. Environments in close proximity to urban wastewater flows in this setting may experience locally elevated concentrations of ARGs, a possible concern for the emergence and dissemination of antimicrobial resistance in cities with poor sanitation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Olivia Ginn
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, United States.
| | - Dennis Nichols
- Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States.
| | - Lucas Rocha-Melogno
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, And Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, United States.
| | - Aaron Bivins
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Science, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46656, United States.
| | - David Berendes
- Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, United States.
| | - Freddy Soria
- Centro de Investigación en Agua, Energía y Sostenibilidad, Universidad Católica Boliviana "San Pablo", La Paz, Bolivia.
| | - Marcos Andrade
- Laboratory for Atmospheric Physics, Institute for Physics Research, Universidad Mayor de San Andres, La Paz, Bolivia; Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
| | - Marc A Deshusses
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, And Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, United States.
| | - Mike Bergin
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, And Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, United States.
| | - Joe Brown
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, United States; Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
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