| Title: | Bisphenols Promote the Pheromone-Responsive Plasmid-Mediated Conjugative Transfer of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Enterococcus faecalis |
| Author(s): | Yang Y; Yang X; Zhou H; Niu Y; Li J; Fu X; Wang S; Xue B; Li C; Zhao C; Zhang X; Shen Z; Wang J; Qiu Z; |
| Address: | "Tianjin Institute of Environmental and Operational Medicine, Tianjin300050, China. Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai201306, China. Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin301617, China" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1520-5851 (Electronic) 0013-936X (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "The enrichment and spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) induced by environmental chemical pollution further exacerbated the threat to human health and ecological safety. Several compounds are known to induce R plasmid-mediated conjugation through inducing reactive oxygen species (ROS), increasing cell membrane permeability, enhancing regulatory genes expression, and so forth. Up to now, there has been no substantial breakthrough in the studies of models and related mechanisms. Here, we established a new conjugation model using pheromone-responsive plasmid pCF10 and confirmed that five kinds of bisphenols (BPs) at environmentally relevant concentrations could significantly promote the conjugation of ARGs mediated by plasmid pCF10 in E. faecalis by up to 4.5-fold compared with untreated cells. Using qPCR, gene knockout and UHPLC, we explored the mechanisms behind this phenomenon using bisphenol A (BPA) as a model of BPs and demonstrated that BPA could upregulate the expression of pheromone, promote bacterial aggregation, and even directly activate conjugation as a pheromone instead of producing ROS and enhancing cell membrane permeability. Interestingly, the result of mathematical analysis showed that the pheromone effect of most BPs is more potent than that of synthetic pheromone cCF10. These findings provide new insight into the environmental behavior and biological effect of BPs and provided new method and theory to study on enrichment and spread of ARGs induced by environmental chemical pollution" |
| Keywords: | "*Anti-Bacterial Agents/pharmacology Bacterial Proteins/genetics Conjugation, Genetic Drug Resistance, Microbial *Enterococcus faecalis/genetics Pheromones/genetics/metabolism Plasmids Reactive Oxygen Species/metabolism *Benzhydryl Compounds/pharmacology *;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineYang, Yutong Yang, Xiaobo Zhou, Hongrui Niu, Yuanyuan Li, Jing Fu, Xinyue Wang, Shang Xue, Bin Li, Chenyu Zhao, Chen Zhang, Xi Shen, Zhiqiang Wang, Jingfeng Qiu, Zhigang eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't 2022/11/30 Environ Sci Technol. 2022 Dec 20; 56(24):17653-17662. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.2c05349. Epub 2022 Nov 29" |
