Longitudinal metagenomic analysis on antibiotic resistome, mobilome, and microbiome of river ecosystems in a sub-tropical metropolitan city

作者：Xuemei Mao, Xiaole Yin, Yu Yang, Fang-Zhou Gao, Shuxian Li, Xianghui Shi, Yu Deng, Liguan Li, Kmy Leung, Tong Zhang · 发表于：Water Research · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.watres.2025.123102 · 被引用次数：18 · 研究领域：Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts、Antibiotic Use and Resistance、Gut microbiota and health

• The resistome in rivers was unveiled by a longitudinal metagenomic analysis • The abundance and diversity of ARGs exhibited high spatial variation • Absolute concentrations of ARGs were correlated to environmental factors • Long-read sequencing revealed the linkage of ARGs with MGEs and pathogenic hosts Rivers play an important role as reservoirs and sinks for antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). However, it remains underexplored for the resistome and associated mobilome in river ecosystems, and hosts of riverine ARGs particularly the pathogenic ones are rarely studied. This study for the first time conducted a longitudinal metagenomic analysis to unveil the resistome, mobilome, and microbiome in river water, by collecting samples from 16 rivers in Hong Kong over a three-year period and using both short-read and long-read sequencing. Results revealed that aminoglycoside, bacitracin, β-lactam, macrolide lincosamide-streptogramin, and sulfonamide were the predominant ARG types in the river water samples. Riverine ARGs exhibited high spatial variations in abundance and diversity. Environmental factors such as fecal coliform count, Escherichia coli count, 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD 5 ), dissolved oxygen (DO), and total organic carbon (TOC) had a significant correlation to the absolute concentrations of ARGs. Nanopore sequencing was used to reveal the physical genetic linkage of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) with ARGs in river water samples. The results showed that qac...