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Original research — experimental, observational, or case-control study. Direct primary evidence.
Environmental Sources
Marine & Wildlife
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Selectively enrichment of antibiotics and ARGs by microplastics in river, estuary and marine waters
The Science of The Total Environment2019
210 citations
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Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count.
Score: 55
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0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Wenfeng Li,
Wenfeng Li,
Yongming Luo
Wenfeng Li,
Wenfeng Li,
Wenfeng Li,
Shanshan Wang,
Nana Xue,
Wenfeng Li,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Wenfeng Li,
Wenfeng Li,
Wenfeng Li,
Nana Xue,
Yongming Luo
Wenfeng Li,
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Nana Xue,
Nana Xue,
Xiangliang Pan,
Shanshan Wang,
Wenfeng Li,
Wenfeng Li,
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Yongming Luo
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Wenfeng Li,
Wenfeng Li,
Xiangliang Pan,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Shanshan Wang,
Xiangliang Pan,
Daoyong Zhang,
Yongming Luo
Daoyong Zhang,
Xiangliang Pan,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Wenfeng Li,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Yongming Luo
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Yongming Luo
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Xiangliang Pan,
Shanshan Wang,
Shanshan Wang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Xiangliang Pan,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Xiangliang Pan,
Daoyong Zhang,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Daoyong Zhang,
Daoyong Zhang,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Daoyong Zhang,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Wenfeng Li,
Daoyong Zhang,
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Yongming Luo
Xiangliang Pan,
Daoyong Zhang,
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Xiangliang Pan,
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Xiangliang Pan,
Xiangliang Pan,
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Xiangliang Pan,
Yongming Luo
Yongming Luo
Summary
Researchers investigated how microplastics interact with antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes across river, estuary, and marine environments of varying salinity. They found that microplastics can concentrate both antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes from surrounding water, with this enrichment effect being strongest in freshwater and decreasing as salinity increases. The study raises concerns that microplastics may serve as vehicles for spreading antibiotic resistance in aquatic ecosystems.
The partition of antibiotics and antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) between the microplastics (MPs) and the surrounding water with various salinity are still unclear. In this study, we hypothesized that adsorption of antibiotics on MPs might cause a significant change of the structure of microbial communities, diversity and abundance of ARGs on MPs and this might be further affected by change of salinity. In this study, we investigated adsorption of four common antibiotics (sulfamerazine, tetracycline, chloramphenicol and tylosin) to polyethylene (PE) MPs in river, estuary and marine waters, and the differences of antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) and bacterial communities on MPs and in the three waters. The results showed that MPs can enrich antibiotics, ARGs and microbes from the surrounding water. Elevated salinity could reduce adsorption of antibiotics to MPs and the abundance of ARGs. For example, MPs can concentrate more antibiotics and ARGs in the fresh river water than in the estuary and the marine waters. In addition, ARGs and bacterial communities on MPs at various salinity were significantly different under the pressure of four antibiotics. On MPs, sul1, sulA/folP-01, tetA, tetC, tetX and ermE increased significantly but a few new ARGs such as sulA/folP-01 and tetA appeared. The structure of the bacterial communities on MPs was different from the surrounding water since some bacteria species found on MPs were barely detected in the surrounding water while some genera on MPs vanished after exposure to antibiotics. As the antibiotics adsorbed and the ARGs on MPs decreased with the water salinity, the structure of the communities on MPs thus varied with salinity change. These findings are important to understand the effects of MPs on the transport, fate and ecological risk of antibiotics and ARGs in different aquatic environments.