The use of glyphosate related to the rise of antimicrobial resistance within the conceptual frame of One health

KNECHT C; PRACK MC CORMICK B; ÁLVAREZ VE; FUCHS, J; CARRERA PÁEZ LC; GONZALES MACHUCA A; PIEKAR, M; CARPIO DÍAZ E; DONIS, N; CAMPOS, J; QUIROGA MP; CENTRÓN D

Congreso; 3er Congreso Latinoamericano de Ecología Microbiana. ISME Lat 2023; 2023

The rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) currently represents one of the most serious health-related threats. To unveil the mechanisms that affect AMR in nature is crucial because environmental bacterial communities are the source of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARG) subsequently detected in the clinic. Biocides which are not used as antimicrobials but have bactericidal/bacteriostatic activity can exert selective pressure towards antimicrobial-resistant bacterial strains. That could be the case of glyphosate, which is the active compound of the most used herbicides worldwide. Because one microorganism can carry several ARG, intensive use of glyphosate-herbicides could pose a relevant driving factor for the development and spread of AMR through co- and cross-selection with the subsequent uptake by clinical isolates. While metagenomic techniques are more frequently used with environmental samples, strain-based approaches are more common in AMR research using clinical samples. Comparisons between these two big niches remain therefore limited.Here, we analysed both environmental and multidrug-resistant (MDR) clinical isolates from Argentina concerning their ability to grow in the presence of glyphosate. We have isolated bacteria (71) from the sediment of the Paraná River and tested them for their resistance towards a glyphosate-herbicide and glyphosate as a neat compound. The same was carried out with clinical isolates from our country (19), including MDR high-risk clones such as Klebsiella pneumoniae ST11, Escherichia coli ST131, and Acinetobacter baumannii global clone 1. Over 80% of clinical isolates and 25% of the environmental isolates were highly resistant to the herbicide. We then analysed 22 genomes of both environmental and clinical isolates identified their species, and searched for AMR genes and mobile genetic elements. The species which were frequently resistant to the herbicide in the environment were identified as members of the Enterobacter cloacae complex and as Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. Our results indicate that glyphosate can favour the prevalence of bacterial species in the environment that are naturally MDR and that are active in the acquisition of ARG from clinical sources. This in turn could accelerate the evolution to MDR in countries with unrestricted use of this herbicide.