Detection of antimicrobial resistance genes in urban air

This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of a method for metagenomic analysis of microbial composition and ARGs in the outdoor air. Air samples were collected with a Harvard impactor in the PM10 range at 50  m from a hospital in Budapest. From the DNA yielded from samples of PM10 fraction single-end reads were generated with an Ion Torrent sequencer. During the metagenomic analysis, reads were classified taxonomically. The core bacteriome was defined. Reads were assembled to contigs and the ARG content was analyzed. The dominant genera in the core bacteriome wereBacillus,Acinetobacter,Leclercia andPaenibacillus. Among the identified ARGs best hits werevanRA,Bla1,mphL,Escherichia coli EF-Tu mutants conferring resistance to pulvomycin;BcI,FosB, andmphM. Despite the low DNA content of the samples of PM10 fraction, the number of detected airborne ARGs was surprisingly high.
Source: MicrobiologyOpen - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: COMMENTARY Source Type: research