Dispersion of Antibiotic Resistance Genes (ARGs) from stored swine manure biogas digestate to the atmosphere

Abstract

Biogas digestate is a reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and could pose a high health risk to both human and animals if the host microorganisms of ARGs become aerosolized. The purpose of this study was to investigate the diversity and relative abundance characteristics of aerosol-loaded ARGs from biogas digestate during storage, and to explore whether the change of ARGs in biogas digestate directly affect the dispersion of aerosol-loaded ARGs. This study reported for the first time that 28 of 42 ARG subtypes detected in the biogas digestate could be dispersed to the atmosphere via aerosol dispersion in a lab-scale dynamic emission vessels experiment. The relative abundance or diversity of ARGs in aerosols were different from that in biogas digestate, and no significant correlation were observed between the relative abundance of ARGs in biogas digestate and aerosols. The dominant ARGs were tetracycline resistance genes in biogas digestate and β-lactam resistance genes in aerosols. The process of biogas digestate storage reduced the total relative abundance of targeted ARGs in biogas digestate, decreased by 0.35 copies/16S rRNA after 30 days of storage, but increased the abundance of some ARG subtypes, including tetM, tetX, tetQ, tetS, ermF and sul2. High-concerned ARGs, including NDM-1, mcr-1 and vancomycin resistance genes (including vanA, vanB, vanRA and vanSA), were found in biogas digestate, and NDM-1 and vanB were also detected in aerosols. These results indicated a potential risk of ARGs dispersion during biogas digestate storage. Further research on the dispersion of ARGs from biogas digestate is required to elucidate the emission mechanism and develop mitigation measures.

Keywords: Antibiotic resistance genes; Bioaerosol; Biogas digestate; Dispersion.