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      Antibiotics in the Soil Environment—Degradation and Their Impact on Microbial Activity and Diversity

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          Abstract

          Antibiotics play a key role in the management of infectious diseases in humans, animals, livestock, and aquacultures all over the world. The release of increasing amount of antibiotics into waters and soils creates a potential threat to all microorganisms in these environments. This review addresses issues related to the fate and degradation of antibiotics in soils and the impact of antibiotics on the structural, genetic and functional diversity of microbial communities. Due to the emergence of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, which is considered a worldwide public health problem, the abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in soils are also discussed. When antibiotic residues enter the soil, the main processes determining their persistence are sorption to organic particles and degradation/transformation. The wide range of DT50 values for antibiotic residues in soils shows that the processes governing persistence depend on a number of different factors, e.g., physico-chemical properties of the residue, characteristics of the soil, and climatic factors (temperature, rainfall, and humidity). The results presented in this review show that antibiotics affect soil microorganisms by changing their enzyme activity and ability to metabolize different carbon sources, as well as by altering the overall microbial biomass and the relative abundance of different groups (i.e., Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria, and fungi) in microbial communities. Studies using methods based on analyses of nucleic acids prove that antibiotics alter the biodiversity of microbial communities and the presence of many types of ARGs in soil are affected by agricultural and human activities. It is worth emphasizing that studies on ARGs in soil have resulted in the discovery of new genes and enzymes responsible for bacterial resistance to antibiotics. However, many ambiguous results indicate that precise estimation of the impact of antibiotics on the activity and diversity of soil microbial communities is a great challenge.

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          Global increase and geographic convergence in antibiotic consumption between 2000 and 2015

          Significance Antibiotic resistance, driven by antibiotic consumption, is a growing global health threat. Our report on antibiotic use in 76 countries over 16 years provides an up-to-date comprehensive assessment of global trends in antibiotic consumption. We find that the antibiotic consumption rate in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has been converging to (and in some countries surpassing) levels typically observed in high-income countries. However, inequities in drug access persist, as many LMICs continue to be burdened with high rates of infectious disease-related mortality and low rates of antibiotic consumption. Our findings emphasize the need for global surveillance of antibiotic consumption to support policies to reduce antibiotic consumption and resistance while providing access to these lifesaving drugs.
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            Use of p-nitrophenyl phosphate for assay of soil phosphatase activity

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              Microbiological effects of sublethal levels of antibiotics.

              The widespread use of antibiotics results in the generation of antibiotic concentration gradients in humans, livestock and the environment. Thus, bacteria are frequently exposed to non-lethal (that is, subinhibitory) concentrations of drugs, and recent evidence suggests that this is likely to have an important role in the evolution of antibiotic resistance. In this Review, we discuss the ecology of antibiotics and the ability of subinhibitory concentrations to select for bacterial resistance. We also consider the effects of low-level drug exposure on bacterial physiology, including the generation of genetic and phenotypic variability, as well as the ability of antibiotics to function as signalling molecules. Together, these effects accelerate the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria among humans and animals.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Front Microbiol
                Front Microbiol
                Front. Microbiol.
                Frontiers in Microbiology
                Frontiers Media S.A.
                1664-302X
                08 March 2019
                2019
                : 10
                : 338
                Affiliations
                [1] 1Department of Microbiology and Virology, School of Pharmacy with the Division of Laboratory Medicine, Medical University of Silesia , Sosnowiec, Poland
                [2] 2Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Silesia , Katowice, Poland
                [3] 3Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Silesia , Katowice, Poland
                Author notes

                Edited by: Matthias E. Kaestner, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Germany

                Reviewed by: Ulisses Nunes da Rocha, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Germany; Jan Roelof Van Der Meer, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland

                *Correspondence: Mariusz Cycoń mcycon@ 123456sum.edu.pl

                This article was submitted to Microbiotechnology, Ecotoxicology and Bioremediation, a section of the journal Frontiers in Microbiology

                Article
                10.3389/fmicb.2019.00338
                6418018
                30906284
                193c031e-41ab-4ffc-91e4-e97f38ecf115
                Copyright © 2019 Cycoń, Mrozik and Piotrowska-Seget.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

                History
                : 05 July 2018
                : 08 February 2019
                Page count
                Figures: 5, Tables: 8, Equations: 0, References: 288, Pages: 45, Words: 29222
                Funding
                Funded by: Narodowe Centrum Nauki 10.13039/501100004281
                Award ID: DEC-2014/15B/NZ9/04414
                Categories
                Microbiology
                Review

                Microbiology & Virology
                antibiotics,degradation,dt50,microbial activities,microbial community structure,antibiotic resistance genes,metagenomics,soil

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