Resistome in the indoor dust samples from workplaces and households: a pilot study

Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2024 Dec 3:14:1484100. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2024.1484100. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

The antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) limit the susceptibility of bacteria to antimicrobials, representing a problem of high importance. Current research on the presence of ARGs in microorganisms focuses mainly on humans, livestock, hospitals, or wastewater. However, the spectrum of ARGs in the dust resistome in workplaces and households has gone relatively unexplored. This pilot study aimed to analyze resistome in indoor dust samples from participants' workplaces (a pediatric hospital, a maternity hospital, and a research center) and households and compare two different approaches to the ARGs analysis; high-throughput quantitative PCR (HT-qPCR) and whole metagenome shotgun sequencing (WMGS). In total, 143 ARGs were detected using HT-qPCR, with ARGs associated with the macrolides, lincosamides, and streptogramin B (MLSB) phenotype being the most abundant, followed by MDR (multi-drug resistance) genes, and genes conferring resistance to aminoglycosides. A higher overall relative quantity of ARGs was observed in indoor dust samples from workplaces than from households, with the pediatric hospital being associated with the highest relative quantity of ARGs. WMGS analysis revealed 36 ARGs, of which five were detected by both HT-qPCR and WMGS techniques. Accordingly, the efficacy of the WMGS approach to detect ARGs was lower than that of HT-qPCR. In summary, our pilot data revealed that indoor dust in buildings where people spend most of their time (workplaces, households) can be a significant source of antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms, which may potentially pose a health risk to both humans and animals.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance gene; antimicrobial resistance; hospital; indoor environment; microbiome.

MeSH terms

  • Air Microbiology
  • Air Pollution, Indoor
  • Anti-Bacterial Agents / pharmacology
  • Bacteria / classification
  • Bacteria / drug effects
  • Bacteria / genetics
  • Bacteria / isolation & purification
  • Drug Resistance, Bacterial / genetics
  • Dust* / analysis
  • Family Characteristics
  • Genes, Bacterial / genetics
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
  • Humans
  • Metagenome
  • Pilot Projects
  • Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Workplace*

Substances

  • Dust
  • Anti-Bacterial Agents

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The authors acknowledge funding from the Czech Science Foundation (GACR, grant no. GA22-32743S). Project was supported by Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic – conceptual development of research organization (FNBr, 65269705). The work was also supported from project Cetocoen Plus (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/15_003/0000469). Authors thank to Research Infrastructure RECETOX RI (No LM2023069) financed by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports for supportive background. This work was supported from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 857560 (CETOCOEN Excellence). This publication reflects only the author’s view, and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. EK was also supported by project Maternity hospital dust microbiome and resistome (MUNI/IGA/1060/2020).