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Review
. 2021 Dec 13:12:766242.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.766242. eCollection 2021.

Environmental Biofilms as Reservoirs for Antimicrobial Resistance

Gabriela Flores-Vargas  1 , Jordyn Bergsveinson  2 , John R Lawrence  2 , Darren R Korber  1
Affiliations
Review

Environmental Biofilms as Reservoirs for Antimicrobial Resistance

Gabriela Flores-Vargas et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Characterizing the response of microbial communities to a range of antibiotic concentrations is one of the strategies used to understand the impact of antibiotic resistance. Many studies have described the occurrence and prevalence of antibiotic resistance in microbial communities from reservoirs such as hospitals, sewage, and farm feedlots, where bacteria are often exposed to high and/or constant concentrations of antibiotics. Outside of these sources, antibiotics generally occur at lower, sub-minimum inhibitory concentrations (sub-MICs). The constant exposure to low concentrations of antibiotics may serve as a chemical "cue" that drives development of antibiotic resistance. Low concentrations of antibiotics have not yet been broadly described in reservoirs outside of the aforementioned environments, nor is the transfer and dissemination of antibiotic resistant bacteria and genes within natural microbial communities fully understood. This review will thus focus on low antibiotic-concentration environmental reservoirs and mechanisms that are important in the dissemination of antibiotic resistance to help identify key knowledge gaps concerning the environmental resistome.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance; bacteriophage; biofilms; environmental resistome; reservoirs; sub-minimum inhibitory concentration.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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