Abstract
The emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) induced by the overuse of antibiotics has become a serious threat to public health. Heavy metals will bring longer-term selection pressure to ARGs when the concentration of their residues is higher than that of antibiotics in environmental media. To explore the potential roles of montmorillonite (Mt) in the emergence of ARGs under divalent cadmium ion (Cd2+) stress, Escherichia coli (E. coli) was induced continuously for 15 days under Cd2+ gradient concentrations (16, 32, 64, 96, and 128 μg∙mL−1) with and without Mt. Subsequently, antibiotic resistance testing, transcriptomics, transmission electron microscope, scanning electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared were conducted for analysis. The results of characterization analysis showed that Cd2+could enhance the expression of resistance genes such as penicillin, tetracycline, macrolactone, and chloramphenicol in E. coli. Moreover, compared with Cd2+, Mt-Cd could inhibit the promotion of these resistances by alleviating the expressions of genes involved in cell wall/membrane, protein synthesis, transport systems, signal transduction, and energy supply processes. Therefore, the study promoted the understanding of Cd2+ in triggering bacterial antibiotic resistance and highlighted a novel theme of clay’s ability to mitigate ecological risk of antibiotic resistance caused by heavy metals.
Key points
• Montmorillonite (Mt) could inhibit the promotion of antibiotic resistances.
• E. coli formed a unique resistance mechanism by interacting with Mt and Cd2+.
• Mt stimulated cellular signal transduction, cellular component, and energy supply.
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Data availability
All RNA sequencing data have been stored in the SRA (Sequence Read Archive) database of National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), which could be obtained by Accession Number (SRP263444). The data sets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are either shown in the manuscript or available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors appreciate the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41673092, 41972037), the Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province (2019B1515120015), the Guangdong Science and Technology Program (2020B121201003), Guangdong Special Support Program for Local Innovative and Research Teams Project (2019BT02L218), and the Guangzhou Science and Technology Program (202206010055).
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Yihao Li and Huimin Wang conducted the experiments and wrote the manuscript. Pingxiao Wu: Conceptualization; supervision; project administration; funding acquisition. Lu Jiang and Zubair Ahmed: Writing—review and editing. Bo Ruan: Data curation. Shanshan Yang: Conceptualization.
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Li, Y., Wang, H., Wu, P. et al. Regulatory mechanism of montmorillonite on antibiotic resistance genes in Escherichia coli induced by cadmium. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 106, 5771–5783 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-022-12075-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-022-12075-x