Contrasting dynamics of manure-borne antibiotic resistance genes in different soils.

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are important biological contamination factors in soil systems, posing direct or indirect threats to soil health, food safety and human health. The ubiquitous pollution of ARGs is usually implicated with the application of organic manures in agricultural soil ecosystem. However, little is known about the transmission and fate of ARGs after manure input concerning different soils. Herein, the transmission potential and temporal dynamics of manure-associated ARGs was characterized with three different agricultural soils collected from Jiangxi (JX), Zhejiang (ZJ), and Jilin (JL), respectively. The results show that manure input did not affect the total abundance of ARGs in the receiving soils, but remarkedly alter the compositions of ARGs in soils. The manure-associated ARGs were significantly enriched in the manure-amended soils, including genes conferring resistance to sulfonamide, aminoglycoside, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, and trimethoprim with the fold of 1.97 - 27.86. Variance partitioning analysis showed that the major variances of ARG community was explained by mobile genetic elements and bacterial profile (> 76%) but not the concentrations of heavy metals and antibiotics. Furthermore, 31, 37, and 38 ARG subtypes were identified as the potential extrinsic ARGs derived from manures in the JX, ZJ, and JL soils, respectively, including 13 shared ARG subtypes. It was also found that the manure-associated ARGs (aadA, sul1, sul2, tetC, and tetG) declined with the incubation time in the JX and ZJ soils, whereas they firstly decreased and then increased in the JL soil. The abundance of these five ARGs in the JL soil was significantly higher than that in the JX and ZJ soils. Collectively, this finding revealed that soil type was responsible for the transmission and fate of manure-associated ARGs in agroecosystem.

Effect of Linker Flexibility on the Catalytic Features of a Glycoside Hydrolase Family 45 Endoglucanase from Rhizopus stolonifer.

This study investigated an endoglucanase (EGII) from Rhizopus stolonifer var. reflexus TP-02 that consists of a C-terminal catalytic domain and an N-terminal carbohydrate-binding module joined by a linker rich in glycine, serine, threonine, and alanine. Site-directed mutagenesis was applied to characterize the conformation and dynamics of the linker. Mutants were expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 and purified by Ni-chelating column. Structural analysis indicated that glycine provided flexibility in the enzymatic process. G67P, G91Y, G101Y, G108Y, G109Y, G112P, H61G, H75G, and Y103G were selected on the basis of the results of the bioinformatics and Ramachandran plot analysis for the linker. The catalytic activities of EGII and its mutants on CMC-Na, microcrystalline cellulose (Avicel), and phosphoric acid-swollen celluloses (PASC) showed that flexible amino acids strengthened the activity of the enzyme. It indicated that flexible amino acids could improve the flexibility of the linker. Overall, the linker affected the catalytic efficiency of the endoglucanase in hydrolyzing cellulose chains.