Biogeography and diversity patterns of antibiotic resistome in the sediments of global lakes.

ABSTRACT

Lakes act as one of the reservoirs and dispersal routes of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and pathogenic resistant bacteria in aquatic environments. Previous studies reported the occurrence and distribution of ARGs in lakes worldwide; however, few investigated the biogeography and diversity patterns of antibiotic resistome in the environment. To fill this gap, a large-scale data set of sediment metagenomes was collected from globally distributed lakes and characterized comprehensively using metagenomic assembly-based analysis, aiming to shed light on the biogeography and diversity patterns of ARGs in lake ecosystems from a global perspective. Our analyses showed that abundant and diverse ARGs were found in the global lake sediments, including a set of emerging ARGs such as mcr-type and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae related genes. Most of the identified ARGs were generally associated with the commonly used antibiotics, suggesting the role of increasing antibiotic consumptions on the resistome prevalence. Spatially, the composition and diversity of ARGs varied across geographical distances and exhibited a scale-dependent distance-decay relationship. Notably, the composition of ARGs was largely shaped by bacterial community structure, and their diversities were co-governed by stochastic process (∼48%) and deterministic process (∼52%). Findings provide a valuable insight to better understand ecological mechanisms of ARGs in lake ecosystems and have important implication for the prevention and control of resistome risk.