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Our latest paper ‘Microbiota analysis of rural and urban surface waters and sediments in Bangladesh identifies human waste as driver of antibiotic resistance’ is now on @biorxivpreprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.04.429629v1 /1
This collaboration between @IMIBirmingham and @icddr_b set out to study the spread of antibiotic resistance genes in the environment in Bangladesh. /2
We sampled surface water and sediments in rural and urban (Dhaka) sites in Bangladesh and determined levels of ESBL-producing Gram-negatives and the total ‘resistome’ through shotgun sequencing. /3
We found that the highest levels of resistance genes were found in urban sites, even compared with rural sites where antibiotics were used for fish farming. /4
The levels of antibiotic resistance genes were strongly correlated with levels of bacteria originating from the human gut, strongly suggesting that the release of human waste is a major driver of antibiotic resistance genes in the environment. /5
We also found that the urban sites had higher levels of plasmid-associated resistance genes, which is a concern as these obviously are more likely to spread between hosts. /6
Finally, for all plasmid fans, we found an ancestral version of a widely studied IncQ-type plasmid RSF1010 (first characterised by Stanley Falkow!) in our dataset. /7
This paper would never have happened without @roscobacterium’s efforts and our great collaborators in Bangladesh ( @ImamTaskinAlam @HassanZaman91 on Twitter). Thanks to @StanleyHoBio and @pRobM91 for their contributions on metagenomics and plasmids, respectively. /8
Let me know if you have any comments/suggestions/questions or leave a comment on https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.04.429629v1 /9 & end
