Geographics and bacterial networks differently shape the acquired and latent global sewage resistomes.

ABSTRACT: Antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) have rapidly emerged and spread globally, but the pathways driving their spread remain poorly understood. We analyzed 1240 sewage samples from 351 cities across 111 countries, comparing ARGs known to be mobilized with those identified through functional metagenomics (FG). FG ARGs showed stronger associations with bacterial taxa than the acquired ARGs. Network analyses further confirmed this and showed potential for source attribution of both known and novel ARGs. The FG resistome was more evenly dispersed globally, whereas the acquired resistome followed distinct geographical patterns. City-wise distance-decay analyses revealed that the FG ARGs showed significant decay within countries but not across regions or globally. In contrast, acquired ARGs show

SUBMITTER: Martiny HM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12639157 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature