The prevalence of ampicillin-resistant opportunistic pathogenic bacteria undergoing selective stress of heavy metal pollutants in the Xiangjiang River, China

The emergence of clinically relevant ?-lactam-resistant bacteria poses a serious threat to human health and presents major challenge for medical treatment. How opportunistic pathogenic acquire antibiotic resistance the prevalence antibiotic-resistant in environment are still unclear. In this study, we further confirmed that selective pressure heavy metals contributes increase ampicillin-resistant pathogens Xiangjiang River. Four (Pseudomonas monteilii, Aeromonas hydrophila, Acinetobacter baumannii, Staphylococcus epidermidis) were isolated on Luria-Bertani (LB) agar plates identified by 16S rRNA sequencing. abundance these significantly increased sites downstream River heavily influenced metal mining activities. A microcosm experiment showed ?-lactam genes carried (Cu2+ Zn2+) treatment group was 2–10 times higher than control. Moreover, horizontal transfer plasmids bacteria. Of particular interest is facilitated conjugative plasmids, which may lead multidrug-resistant