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High frequency of antibiotic tolerance in deep subsurface heterotrophic cultivable bacteria from the Rozália Gold Mine, Slovakia

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Abstract

The Rozália Mine, with its long mining history, could represent an environmental threat connected with metal contamination and associated antibiotic tolerance. Metal and antibiotic tolerance profiles of heterotrophic, cultivable bacteria isolated from the Rozália Gold Mine in Hodruša-Hámre, Slovakia, and the surrounding area were analysed. Subsurface samples were collected from different mine levels or an ore storage dump. As expected, heterotrophic cultivable bacteria showed high minimum inhibitory concentrations for metals (up to 1000 mg/l for zinc and nickel, 2000 mg/l for lead and 500 mg/l for copper). Surprisingly, very high minimum inhibitory concentrations of selected antibiotics were observed, e.g. > 10,000 μg/ml for ampicillin, up to 4800 μg/ml for kanamycin, 800 μg/ml for chloramphenicol and 50 μg/ml for tetracycline. Correlation analysis revealed a linkage between increased tolerance to the antibiotics ampicillin and chloramphenicol and metal tolerance to nickel and copper. A correlation was also observed between tetracycline-kanamycin tolerance and zinc-lead tolerance. Our data indicate that high levels of antibiotic tolerance occur in deep subsurface microbiota, which is probably connected with the increased level of metal concentrations in the mine environment.

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Funding

The work was financially supported by the Slovak Grant Agency for Science VEGA Grant No. 1/0229/17, Slovak Research and Development Agency Grant Nos. APVV-16-0171 and SK-PL-18-0012 and Pavol Jozef Safarik University in Kosice Grant No. VVGS-PF-2019-1044.

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  1. Department of Microbiology, Institute of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University, Šrobárova 2, 04154, Košice, Slovakia

    Ivana Timková, Miroslava Lachká, Jana Kisková, Lenka Maliničová, Lea Nosáľová, Peter Pristaš & Jana Sedláková-Kaduková

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  1. Ivana Timková
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  2. Miroslava Lachká
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  3. Jana Kisková
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  4. Lenka Maliničová
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  6. Peter Pristaš
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  7. Jana Sedláková-Kaduková
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Correspondence to Ivana Timková.

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Timková, I., Lachká, M., Kisková, J. et al. High frequency of antibiotic tolerance in deep subsurface heterotrophic cultivable bacteria from the Rozália Gold Mine, Slovakia. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 44036–44044 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10347-5

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