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Polystyrene microplastics alleviate the effects of sulfamethazine on soil microbial communities at different CO2 concentrations
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Researchers found that polystyrene microplastics alleviated the inhibitory effects of the antibiotic sulfamethazine on soil microbial communities under elevated CO2 conditions, suggesting that microplastics can modify antibiotic toxicity to soil microbes under future climate scenarios.
Microplastics were reported to adsorb antibiotics and may modify their effects on soil systems. But there has been little research investigating how microplastics may affect the toxicities of antibiotics to microbes under future climate conditions. Here, we used a free-air CO enrichment system to investigate the responses of soil microbes to sulfamethazine (SMZ, 1 mg kg) in the presence of polystyrene microplastics (PS, 5 mg kg) at different CO concentrations (ambient at 380 ppm and elevated at 580 ppm). SMZ alone decreased bacterial diversity, negatively affected the bacterial structure and inter-relationships, and enriched the sulfonamide-resistance genes (sul1 and sul2) and class 1 integron (intl1). PS, at both CO conditions, showed little effect on soil bacteria but markedly alleviated SMZ's adverse effects on bacterial diversity, composition and structure, and inhibited sul1 transmission by decreasing the intl1 abundance. Elevated CO had limited modification in SMZ's disadvantages to microbial communities but markedly decreased the sul1 and sul2 abundance. Results indicated that increasing CO concentration or the presence of PS affected the responses of soil microbes to SMZ, providing new insights into the risk prediction of antibiotics under future climate conditions.
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Researchers studied how polyethylene microplastics and the antibiotic ciprofloxacin together affect soil microbial communities and antibiotic degradation. The study found that co-loading of microplastics with antibiotics altered microbial community structure and affected the rate of antibiotic degradation in soil, suggesting microplastic contamination may influence how soils process pharmaceutical pollutants.
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