ANTIVERSA

Table of contents

1. 1. About the Project
   2. Follow us
   3. Team
   4. Funding
   5. Publications
   6. Downloads

Biodiversity as an ecological barrier for the spread of clinically relevant antibiotic resistance in the environment

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the largest health-related issues world-wide. The capacity of microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi and other pathogens) to develop resistance to the drugs used to fight them is exponentially increasing. Nowadays, many surface waters and soils are occasionally or chronically polluted by antimicrobial compounds. At the same time, antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARBs) and antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) also spread into the environment, e.g. from manure and livestock facilities as well as from treated and untreated urban, hospital and industrial wastewater. The role of the environment in promoting or hindering the dissemination of resistance through pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria is currently under scientific scrutiny. The ANTIVERSA project consortium aims to study whether highly diverse aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems could prevent or delay the diffusion of AMR.

About the Project

ANTIVERSA is project of an European Consortium, composed of teams from seven countries and coordinated by the Technical University of Dresden (TUD). 

The main objective is understand the impact of diversity on the invasion of natural microbial communities (microbiomes of aquatic stream biofilms and terrestrial soils) by ARBs, ARGs and their associated mobile genetic elements (MGEs). Aquatic biofilms and soil microbiomes of contrasting diversity will be exposed to extracellular DNA, transducing phages or resistant bacteria of anthropogenic origin in experiments following standardised procedures to be obtain comparable results from all consortium countries. Additionally, selected aquatic and terrestrial sites with different level of biodiversity from all consortium countries will be monitored over time for their biodiversity and abundance in ARGs and ARBs, under the hypothesis to find a negative correlation between the biodiversity and the abundance of antibiotic resistance. Overall, the ANTIVERSA project stresses the importance of studying the nexus between biodiversity and the antibiotic resistance with the final goal of preserving natural ecosystems services and to help develop management practices and regulations to maintain water and soil quality.

Follow us

Team

ANTIVERSA is project of an European Consortium, composed of teams from seven countries.

Funding

The project is part of BiodivERsA and funded by 

• Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (Germany, funding nr. 01LC1904A)
• Environmental Protection Agency (Ireland)
• Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France)
• Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (Austria)
• Swiss National Science Foundation (Switzerland)
• Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation (Romania)
• National Science Centre (Poland)
• Stadtentwässerung Dresden (Germany)
• The European Commission Horizon 2020 programme

Publications

• Goryluk-Salmonowicz, A, & Popowska, M (2022) Factors promoting and limiting antimicrobial resistance in the environment–Existing knowledge gaps. Frontiers in Microbiology, 13. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.992268

• Kampouris I, Klümper U, Kramer L, Sorum H, Wedekind H, Berendonk TU (2022)

  Dissemination of antibiotic resistance in antibiotic-free recirculating aquaculture systems. Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hazadv.2022.100201

•  Kampouris ID, Agrawal S, Orschler L, Cacace D, Kunze S, Berendonk TU, Klümper U (2021) Antibiotic resistance gene load and irrigation intensity determine the impact of wastewater irrigation on antimicrobial resistance in the soil microbiome. Water Research 193: 116818. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2021.116818
• Kampouris ID, Klümper U, Agrawal S, Orschler L, Cacace D, Kunze S, Berendonk TU (2021) Treated wastewater irrigation promotes the spread of antibiotic resistance into subsoil pore-water. Environment International 146: 106190. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2020.106190
• Kampouris ID, Alygizakis N, Klümper U, Agrawal S, Lackner S, Cacace D, Kunze S, Thomaidis NS, Slobdonik J, Berendonk TU (2021) Elevated levels of antibiotic resistance in groundwater during treated wastewater irrigation associated with infiltration and accumulation of antibiotic residues. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 127155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127155

• Kneis D, Berendonk TU, Forslund SK, Hess S (2022) Antibiotic Resistance Genes in River Biofilms: A Metagenomic Approach toward the Identification of Sources and Candidate Hosts. Environmental Science & Technology. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c00370

• Mishra S, Klümper U, Voolaid V, Berendonk TU, Kneis D (2021) Simultaneous estimation of parameters governing the vertical and horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes. Science of The Total Environment.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149174.

• Teban-Man A, Farkas A, Baricz A, Hegedus A, Szekeres E, Pârvu M, Coman C (2021) Wastewaters, with or without Hospital Contribution, Harbour MDR, Carbapenemase-Producing, but Not Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae. Antibiotics 10(4): 361. doi: 10.3390/antibiotics10040361
• Teban-Man A, Szekeres E, Fang P, Klümper U, Hegedus A, Baricz A, Berendonk TU, Pârvu M, Coman C (2022) Municipal wastewaters carry important carbapenemase genes independent of hospital input and can mirror clinical resistance patterns. Microbiology Spectrum e02711-21. https://doi.org/10.1128/spectrum.02711-21
• Wang Y, Yu Z, Ding P, Lu J, Klümper U, Murray A, Gaze W, Guo J (2022) Non-antibiotic pharmaceuticals promote conjugative plasmid transfer at a community-wide level. Microbiome 10, 124. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-022-01314-y
• Weise K, Winter L, Fischer E, Kneis D, de la Cruz Barron M, Kunze S, Berendonk TU, Jungmann D, Klümper U (2022) Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes Promote Bacterial Conjugative Plasmid Transfer. Microbiology Spectrum e00410-22.  https://doi.org/10.1128/spectrum.00410-22

• Zalewska M, Błażejewska A, Czapko A, Popowska M (2021) Antibiotics and Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Animal Manure – Consequences of Its Application in Agriculture. Frontiers in Microbiology 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2021.610656

• Zhou LJ, Han P, Zhao M, Yu Y, Sun D, Hou L, Liu M, Zhao Q, Tang X, Klümper U, Gu JD, Men Y, Wu QL (2021) Biotransformation of lincomycin and fluoroquinolone antibiotics by the ammonia oxidizers AOA, AOB and comammox: A comparison of removal, pathways, and mechanisms. Water Research 196: 117003. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2021.117003 

Downloads

• poster_SEFS_2021

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