High-throughput profiling of antibiotic resistance gene dynamic in a drinking water river-reservoir system

The rapid construction of reservoir in river basin generates a river-reservoir system containing an environmental gradient from river system to reservoir system in modern aquatic environment worldwide. Profiles of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in river-reservoir system is essential to better understand their dynamic mechanisms in aquatic eco-environment. In this study, we investigated the diversity, abundance, distribution of ARGs and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) in a representative river-reservoir system using high-throughput quantitative PCR, as well as ranked the factors (e.g. antibiotics, bacterial biomass, bacteria communities, and MGEs) influencing the patterns of ARGs based on structural equation models (SEMs). Seasonal variations in absolute abundance of ARGs and MGEs exhibited similar trends with local rainfall, suggesting that seasonal runoff induced by the rainfall potentially promote the absolute abundance of ARGs and MGEs. In contrast, environmental gradient played more important roles in the detected number, relative abundance, distribution pattern of ARGs and MGEs in the river-reservoir system. Moreover, environmental gradient also made the co-occurrence patterns associated with ARGs subtypes, MGEs and bacteria genera in river system different from those in reservoir system. The SEMs revealed that MGEs contributed the most to shape the ARG profiles. Overall, our findings provide novel insights into the mechanisms of environmental gradient on ARGs dynamics in river-reservoir system, probably via influencing the MGEs, antibiotics, pathogenic bacteria community and nonpathogenic bacteria community.