Abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes possibly released to ambient air by experiments in biology laboratories
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Date
2021-11-25
Publication Type
Journal Article
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yes
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Abstract
Antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) have been considered as a global emerging threat to public health systems. As special locations where both antibiotics and ARGs are directly used, biology laboratories are poorly studied but potential important emission sources where not only the environmental stress is strong but also obtaining resistance is much easier comparing to other well studied hot spots including farms, hospitals, wastewater treatment plants and landfills where antibiotics but not ARGs are used or discharged. Therefore, in this study, 11 Swiss biology laboratories working on different fields and located in the city center, suburb and rural area were studied to reveal the abundance and diversity of airborne ARGs in them and their surrounding areas with Colony-forming units (CFU) cultivation and quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR). Most biology laboratories did not discharge significant amounts or varieties of ARGs and cultivable bacteria via air. No correlation was found between the number of CFUs and the abundance of 16S rRNA, but two clusters of correlated airborne ARGs, the animal husbandry related cluster, and city and hospital related cluster were identified in this study. Although most biology laboratories may not be the emission sources of a wide variety of airborne ARGs, the ARGs in the animal husbandry related cluster which are abundant in the animal laboratories and aadA1 which is abundant in the laboratories working on other eukaryocytes need to be furtherly studied to make sure if they are potential health risks for the researchers.
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Publication status
published
Editor
Book title
Journal / series
Volume
797
Pages / Article No.
149147
Publisher
Elsevier
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
Bioaerosol; Antibiotic resistance gene (ARG); Biology lab
Organisational unit
03887 - Wang, Jing / Wang, Jing
Notes
Funding
189880 - Emission quantification, transport modelling and risk evaluation of airborne antibiotic resistance genes from key sources in Zürich and Beijing (SNF)