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Characteristics of microbial community of soil subjected to industrial production of antibiotics

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Abstract

Ecosystems worldwide are exposed to pollutants connected to the industrial production of pharmaceuticals. The objective of this study was to study the composition and characteristics of the soil microbial communities that had been exposed to long-term selection pressure caused by the industrial production of penicillin G. Soil samples from four sites among the penicillin G production plant were analysed using 16S rRNA profiling via Illumina MiSeq platform and were compared with the control samples from four sites outside the plant. Total metagenomic DNA from the impacted soil was also used for the preparation of E. coli T1R-based fosmid library which was consequently qualitatively tested for the presence of penicillin G acylase (PGA)–encoding genes using the method of sequence homology. Analyses of alpha diversity revealed that the long-term antibiotic presence in the soil significantly increased the microbial diversity and richness in terms of Shannon diversity index (p = 0.002) and Chao estimates (p = 0.004). Principal component analysis showed that the two types of communities (on-site and control) could be separated at the phylum, class and genus level. The on-site soil was enriched in Betaproteobacteria, Deltaproteobacteria, Gemmatimonadetes, Acidobacteria and Planctomycetia, while a significant decrease in Actinobacteria was observed. Metagenomic fosmid library revealed high hit rates in identifying PGAs (14 different genes identified) and confirmed the biotechnological potential of soils impacted by anthropogenic activity. This study offers new insights into the changes in microbial communities of soils exposed to anthropogenic activity as well as indicates that those soils may represent a hotspot for biotechnologically interesting targets.

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Availability of data and material

Sequencing results were deposited online using the NCBI Submission Portal (SUB7201519).

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Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Grant Agency of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, project GA UK No. 1470414, and the support of the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, long-term research development project RVO 61388971.

Funding

This project was financially supported by the Grant Agency of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, project GA UK No. 1470414, and by the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, long-term research development project RVO 61388971.

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MB, HM and APa designed the experiments. MB, APi and MH performed sampling and laboratory analyses. APi and MH performed sequencing data processing; MB performed statistical analyses and interpreted the data. MB wrote the manuscript. MB, PK and VS conceived of the study. PK, HM, APa and VS supervised the research. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Martina Borčinová.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Borčinová, M., Pitkina, A., Marešová, H. et al. Characteristics of microbial community of soil subjected to industrial production of antibiotics. Folia Microbiol 65, 1061–1072 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12223-020-00819-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12223-020-00819-z

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