Shallow-Water Hydrothermal Vents as Natural Accelerators of Bacterial Antibiotic Resistance in Marine Coastal Areas.

ABSTRACT: Environmental contamination by heavy metals (HMs) poses several indirect risks to human health, including the co-spreading of genetic traits conferring resistance to both HMs and antibiotics among micro-organisms. Microbial antibiotic resistance (AR) acquisition is enhanced at sites anthropogenically polluted by HMs, as well as in remote systems naturally enriched in HMs, such as hydrothermal vents in the deep sea. However, to date, the possible role of hydrothermal vents at shallower water depths as hot spots of microbial AR gain and spreading has not been tested, despite the higher potential risks associated with the closer vicinity of such ecosystems to coasts and human activities. In this work, we collected waters and sediments at the Panarea shallow-water hydrothermal vents, testing t

SUBMITTER: Arcadi E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8877554 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature