Environment International最新文献

{"title":"Mitochondrial ROS-associated integrated stress response is involved in arsenic-induced blood-testis barrier disruption and protective effect of melatonin","authors":"Feng-Wen Niu ,&nbsp;Ming-Dong Liu ,&nbsp;Kai Yao ,&nbsp;Rui Yang ,&nbsp;Lan Gao ,&nbsp;Jin-Xia Zhai ,&nbsp;Chuan Wang ,&nbsp;Shi-Hao Zhang ,&nbsp;De-Xiang Xu ,&nbsp;Zhi-Hui Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109346","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109346","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Arsenic (As) is an environmental metalloid. Previous studies have demonstrated that As exposure resulted in decline of sperm quality. This study aimed to investigate the impact of exposure to As on blood-testis barrier (BTB) in a mouse model. Four-week-old male mice were exposed to NaAsO₂ (1 or 15 mg/L) for 6 weeks. Our results found that NaAsO₂ exposure disrupted the BTB and reduced sperm counts in adult mice. NaAsO₂ activated the integrated stress response (ISR) and downregulated barrier junction protein in mouse testes and Sertoli cells. Ribosome profiling sequencing (Ribo-seq) and Ribosome-nascent chain complex-bound mRNA qPCR (RNC-qPCR) showed that translational efficiency of N-cadherin and ZO-1, two key barrier junction proteins, was reduced in NaAsO₂-treated Sertoli cells. Mechanistically, NaAsO₂ exposure reduced SIRT3 protein via proteasomal degradation, thereby resulting in mitochondrial dysfunction and excess mitochondrial ROS (mtROS) generation in Sertoli cells. Melatonin alleviated NaAsO₂-induced mitochondrial dysfunction and mtROS upregulation via reducing SOD2 acetylation in Sertoli cells. Moreover, melatonin antagonized NaAsO₂-induced ISR, barrier junction proteins downregulation and barrier function impairment in Sertoli cells. Accordingly, melatonin attenuated NaAsO₂-evoked BTB disruption and sperm count reduction in adult mice. These results suggest that mitochondrial dysfunction-associated translational inhibition of barrier junction proteins is involved in As-mediated BTB disruption and sperm quality decline.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":308,"journal":{"name":"Environment International","volume":"197 ","pages":"Article 109346"},"PeriodicalIF":10.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143477384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Antibiotics in ambient fine particulate matter from two metropolitan cities in China: Characterization, source apportionment, and health risk assessment","authors":"Juan Liu ,&nbsp;Qiao Yao ,&nbsp;Wenyan Yan ,&nbsp;Ke Fang ,&nbsp;Runming He ,&nbsp;Xiaona Wang ,&nbsp;Yu’e Cha ,&nbsp;Xiaoyan Yang ,&nbsp;Wen Gu ,&nbsp;Chao Wang ,&nbsp;Yifu Lu ,&nbsp;Mingyu Zhao ,&nbsp;Yujie Ben ,&nbsp;Kai Wang ,&nbsp;Zhaomin Dong ,&nbsp;Rong Zhang ,&nbsp;Hong Chang ,&nbsp;Song Tang","doi":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109340","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109340","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Excessive production and widespread application of antibiotic has led to residues in environmental matrices worldwide. There is limited knowledge of the concentrations of antibiotics bound to ambient fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) and their health risks. We investigated the occurrence, sources, environmental driving factors, and health risks of antibiotics in PM_2.5 samples collected from Beijing and Shijiazhuang, China, during periods of high air pollution. Using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, 25 antibiotics were detected in PM_2.5 at concentrations ranging from undetectable to 774.7 pg/m³. These compounds were predominantly tetracyclines and macrolides. The positive matrix factorization model was used to pinpoint the main sources of these antibiotics as pharmaceutical and medical waste, sewage treatment plants, and livestock emissions, with contributions of 39.1 %, 31.7 %, and 29.2 % respectively, to the total concentrations. Crucial environmental driving factors were determined using a linear mixed-effects model and random forest model. Most antibiotics showed a positive correlation with gaseous pollutants and a negative correlation with meteorological factors. PM_2.5, PM₁₀, and CO had the highest influence. The estimated daily intake and hazard quotient (HQ) were calculated to assess the human inhalation exposure risks for these antibiotics, and children aged 0–6 years had the highest intake of 102.8 pg/kg/day. Although the calculated health risk of antibiotic inhalation was low (HQ &lt; 1), considering that exposure to antibiotics via inhalation occurs over long periods and these compounds accumulate, further attention should be given to health risks associated with this exposure. Our results provide valuable insight for environmental planning and policymaking concerning antibiotic pollution and its associated health risks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":308,"journal":{"name":"Environment International","volume":"197 ","pages":"Article 109340"},"PeriodicalIF":10.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143470879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Radiative warming by multicomponent soot-dominated aerosols can be controlled by material configuration","authors":"M. Kocifaj ,&nbsp;F. Kundracik ,&nbsp;C.A. Gueymard","doi":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109343","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109343","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Among aerosol constituents, soot-dominated particles represent a major concern in the context of climate change because of their highly variable warming effect. It is shown here that their radiative forcing can be controlled by properly mixing them with other materials, which suggests that transitioning from radiative warming to cooling is achievable even under a constant level of soot emission, i.e., without significantly limiting emissions from industries or other sources. This process is found here to hold for submicrometer and micrometer-sized multicomponent aggregates. It is concluded that the radiative forcing related to carbon emissions can be modulated by material coatings condensed onto the surface of absorbing soot particles, either during random particle–particle interactions in an open atmosphere, or in the controlled process of particle growth. The tailoring of optical properties of carbon emissions is thus theoretically possible. This is expected to have significant implications for future emission source regulation policies worldwide.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":308,"journal":{"name":"Environment International","volume":"197 ","pages":"Article 109343"},"PeriodicalIF":10.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143470842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exposure to a mixture of arsenic species and growth indicators in 6–12-year-old children from the cycles 2007–2020 NHANES","authors":"Miguel García-Villarino ,&nbsp;Rocío Fernández-Iglesias ,&nbsp;Ana Victoria García ,&nbsp;Elsa Villa-Fernández ,&nbsp;Lucía Fernández-Arce ,&nbsp;Isolina Riaño-Galán ,&nbsp;Carmen Lambert ,&nbsp;Vicente Martín ,&nbsp;Margaret R. Karagas ,&nbsp;Elías Delgado-Álvarez ,&nbsp;Ana Fernández-Somoano ,&nbsp;Antonio J. Signes-Pastor","doi":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109347","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109347","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Exposure to arsenic (As) and its metabolites can affect normal growth in children, but the combine effects at simultaneous low-level exposures, remain uncertain. Hence, this study aims to analyze how the combined effects of As and its metabolites can impact growth indicators in 1,792 US children aged 6–12 years, from the NHANES.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Levels of arsenic species in urine were measured using HPLC coupled with ICP-DRC-MS during the 2007–2020 NHANES cycles. The sum of iAs ([AsIII + AsV]), MMA, and DMA was used as a biomarker of internal iAs exposure (∑As), and methylation efficiency was assessed using the primary and secondary methylation indices (PMI, SMI). Linear regression and BKMR models were applied to identify adverse effects, nonlinear associations, interactions, and combined effects.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Median concentrations of MMA, DMA, iAs, and ∑As were 0.56 μg/L, 4.07 μg/L, 1.33 μg/L, and 6.40 μg/L, respectively. In the linear regression analyses, higher urinary concentrations of MMA were associated with reductions in several growth indicators. Specifically, each interquartile range (IQR) increase in MMA concentration was linked to decreases of −0.18 (95 % CI: −0.29, −0.06) in Body Mass Index (BMI) Z-score, −0.18 (95 % CI: −0.29, −0.06) in Weight Z-score, and −0.01 (95 % CI: −0.02, −0.01) in Waist circumference/Height ratio. Additionally, higher DMA concentrations were negatively associated with Height Z-score, with a reduction of −0.08 (95 % CI: −0.15, −0.01). In the BKMR analysis, DMA consistently emerged as the dominant contributor across multiple outcomes, showing the highest Posterior Inclusion Probabilities (PIPs) for indicators such as BMI Z-score and Waist circumference/Height ratio. While MMA exhibited notable PIPs in certain models, its influence was generally weaker than that of DMA.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>Childhood exposure to a mixture of arsenic species, even at low levels, appears to influence growth indicators and adversely affect physical development in children enrolled in NHANES.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":308,"journal":{"name":"Environment International","volume":"197 ","pages":"Article 109347"},"PeriodicalIF":10.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143470878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Association between confirmed COVID-19 cases at hospitals and SARS-CoV-2 levels in municipal wastewater during the pandemic and endemic phases","authors":"Keisuke Kagami ,&nbsp;Masaaki Kitajima ,&nbsp;Hiromoto Watanabe ,&nbsp;Toshihiro Hamada ,&nbsp;Yasunobu Kobayashi ,&nbsp;Haruka Kubo ,&nbsp;Seiko Oono ,&nbsp;Hiromi Takai ,&nbsp;Shuichi Ota ,&nbsp;Tatsuya Nagakura ,&nbsp;Toshiyuki Onda ,&nbsp;Kanako Nagahori ,&nbsp;Noriaki Sasaki ,&nbsp;Ikuya Fujimoto ,&nbsp;Akiko Sato ,&nbsp;Sosuke Sumikawa ,&nbsp;Daisuke Matsui ,&nbsp;Yuka Ito ,&nbsp;Megumi Baba ,&nbsp;Tsuyoshi Takeuchi ,&nbsp;Nobuhisa Ishiguro","doi":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109342","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109342","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>COVID-19 is now considered endemic in many countries. On May 8, 2023, Japan reclassified COVID-19 from a pandemic to an endemic status, shifting surveillance from universal to sentinel reporting and transitioning the testing and treatment cost of COVID-19 from public funding to individual health insurance coverage. Restrictions on movement, events, and business hours were lifted, potentially increasing cases and complicating tracking. Monitoring hospital cases remains essential to protect high-risk inpatients from nosocomial infections. In this study, 13,812 COVID-19 cases in 12 hospitals were analyzed and the results revealed a strong correlation between SARS-CoV-2 levels in municipal wastewater and weekly new cases during both the pandemic period (February 15, 2021 – February 26, 2023; Pearson’s <em>r</em> = 0.8321) and the endemic period (May 8, 2023 – October 1, 2023; Pearson’s <em>r</em> = 0.7501). SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels in wastewater from municipal catchment areas showed a stronger correlation with the number of COVID-19 cases at hospitals than did RNA levels in wastewater from the catchment area where the hospitals are located. The difference in correlations was more pronounced during the endemic period. During the endemic period, measurements of SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels in samples obtained from larger sewersheds may be more effective in capturing the overall trends of COVID-19 cases in a region. In other words, during the endemic period, municipal wastewater surveillance may reflect the number of COVID-19 cases in hospitals. Even for facilities that do not monitor SARS-CoV-2 in their own hospital wastewater, publicly available municipal wastewater data can be used to estimate the number of COVID-19 cases in hospitals. Furthermore, COVID-19 infection control measures within hospitals can be evaluated by comparing the number of nosocomial infection patients based on the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 in municipal wastewater.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":308,"journal":{"name":"Environment International","volume":"197 ","pages":"Article 109342"},"PeriodicalIF":10.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143451871","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Persistent organic pollutants and plasma microRNAs: A community-based profiling analysis","authors":"Jingli Qu ,&nbsp;Wending Li ,&nbsp;Chengyong Jia ,&nbsp;Qin Jiang ,&nbsp;Rui Tang ,&nbsp;Yu Yin ,&nbsp;Xi Wang ,&nbsp;Pinpin Long ,&nbsp;Tangchun Wu ,&nbsp;Yu Yuan","doi":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109328","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109328","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Whether exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) may incur microRNAs (miRNAs) dysregulation remains largely unclear.</div></div><div><h3>Objectives</h3><div>We aim to identify the miRNA signature and related pathways of low-level POPs exposure in a community-based population.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>We used general linear regression to model the association of POPs with plasma miRNAs, adjusting for age, gender, smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index, triglyceride, and total cholesterol levels. We performed pathway enrichment analysis based on 11 experimentally validated and prediction-based databases, and performed tissue specificity analysis.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>We identified 19 POPs significantly associated with 23 miRNAs at false discovery rate-adjusted <em>P</em> value &lt; 0.2, most of which were related to organophosphorus and organochlorine pesticides. Pathway enrichment of the associated miRNAs highlighted chromosome segregation, RNA splicing, autophagy regulation, lipid metabolism, cell growth, development and differentiation, cell cycle regulation, neural network construction, and signal transduction. Notably, 13 POPs were positively associated with miR-6810-3p, a miRNA enriched in temporal lobe with high tissue specificity (Tissue Specificity Index = 0.78). Pathway analysis revealed that miR-6810-3p contributes to the positive regulation of autophagy and multiple cellular functions related to the nervous system such as transport along microtubules, maintenance of cell polarity, and synaptic transmission.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>In conclusion, we identified POPs-related miRNA signatures in community-dwelling adults, and highlighted miR-6810-3p in association with multiple POPs, with a potential role in nervous system regulation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":308,"journal":{"name":"Environment International","volume":"197 ","pages":"Article 109328"},"PeriodicalIF":10.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143443650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using artificial intelligence tools for data quality evaluation in the context of microplastic human health risk assessments","authors":"Yanning Qiu,&nbsp;Svenja Mintenig,&nbsp;Margherita Barchiesi,&nbsp;Albert A. Koelmans","doi":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109341","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109341","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Concerns about the negative impacts of microplastics on human health are increasing in society, while exposure and risk assessments require high-quality, reliable data. Although quality assurance and –control (QA/QC) frameworks exist to evaluate the reliability of data for these purposes, manually assessing studies is too time-consuming and prone to inconsistencies due to semantic ambiguities and evaluator bias. The rapid growth of microplastic studies makes manually screening relevant data practically unfeasible. This study explores the potential of artificial intelligence (AI), specifically large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, to streamline and standardize the QA/QC screening of data in microplastics research. We developed specific prompts based on previously published QA/QC criteria for the analysis of microplastics in drinking water and its sources, and used these to instruct AI tools to evaluate 73 studies published between 2011 and 2024. Our approach demonstrated the effectiveness of AI in extracting relevant information, interpreting the reliability of studies, and replicating human assessments. The findings indicate that AI-assisted assessments show promise in improving speed, consistency and applicability in QA/QC tasks, as well as in ranking studies or datasets based on their suitability for exposure and risk assessments. This groundbreaking application of LLMs in the environmental sciences suggests that AI can play a vital role in harmonizing microplastics risk assessments within regulatory frameworks and demonstrates how to meet the demands of an increasingly data-intensive application domain.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":308,"journal":{"name":"Environment International","volume":"197 ","pages":"Article 109341"},"PeriodicalIF":10.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143435327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Chemical risk assessment in food animals via physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling − Part I: Veterinary drugs on human food safety assessment","authors":"Kun Mi ,&nbsp;Xue Wu ,&nbsp;Zhoumeng Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109339","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109339","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Veterinary drugs and environmental pollutants can enter food animals and remain as residues in food chains threatening human food safety and health. Performing health risk and food safety assessments to derive safety levels of these xenobiotics can protect human health. Physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling is a mathematical tool to quantitatively describe chemical disposition in humans and animals informing human food safety and health risk assessments. However, few reviews focus on the application of PBPK models in food animals and discuss their relationship to human food safety and health risk assessments in the last five years (2020–2024). In this series of reviews, we introduce the methodology, recent progress and challenges of PBPK modeling in food animals. The present review is Part I of this series of reviews and it focuses on applications of PBPK models of veterinary drugs in food animals, whereas Part II is a companion review focusing on environmental chemicals. Advanced strategies of PBPK modeling in risk and food safety assessment, including population PBPK, interactive PBPK web dashboard, and generic PBPK are also summarized in Part I. Additionally, we share our perspective on the existing challenges and future direction for PBPK modeling of veterinary medicines in food animals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":308,"journal":{"name":"Environment International","volume":"197 ","pages":"Article 109339"},"PeriodicalIF":10.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143435343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exposure to nanoplastics exacerbates light pollution hazards to mammalian","authors":"Haipeng Huang ,&nbsp;Jiaqi Hou ,&nbsp;Yilie Liao ,&nbsp;Jing Yu ,&nbsp;Beidou Xi","doi":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109338","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109338","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Environmental light pollution adversely affects brain function, disturbing circadian rhythms and negatively impacting human health. Nanoplastics (NPs) pollution is pervasive in the human environment, and their minuscule size facilitates entry into the body, particularly invading brain and compromising its functionality. However, whether NPs infiltrate rhythm-regulated brain regions and disrupt circadian rhythms in organisms remains unclear. Our study demonstrates that exposure to NPs in mice perturbs normal circadian rhythms. Specifically, NPs invade the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), affecting the circadian clock genes network and altering the regular oscillations of core clock genes. Exposure to NPs renders the intrinsic rhythms more susceptible to disruption by light pollution, resulting in more pronounced disorder to metabolism, immune regulation, and brain function. This work is the first to investigate the combined effects of ambient light pollution and NPs pollution on mammalian health, and our findings suggest that NPs amplify the health impacts of light pollution. These findings also highlight that efforts to mitigate human health risks from environmental pollutants should begin to consider the synergistic effects of various classes of pollutants.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":308,"journal":{"name":"Environment International","volume":"197 ","pages":"Article 109338"},"PeriodicalIF":10.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143418214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Long-read epicPCR enhances species-level host identification of clinically relevant antibiotic resistance genes in environmental microbial communities","authors":"Shihai Liu ,&nbsp;Shiting Dai ,&nbsp;Ye Deng ,&nbsp;Juan Li ,&nbsp;Yu Zhang ,&nbsp;Min Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109337","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.envint.2025.109337","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Identifying clinically relevant antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) hosts in complex microbial communities is crucial for environmental health. EpicPCR (emulsion, paired isolation, and concatenation PCR), a single-cell technology, has advanced this field. However, its traditional format, which links target genes to the V4 region of 16S rRNA genes (∼300 bp), limits species-level identification. To overcome this, we developed “long-read” epicPCR, which links target genes to 16S segments spanning the V4-V9 regions (∼1000 bp) by refining primer pairing strategies to balance amplification length and specificity. We validated this approach by targeting seven clinically relevant ARGs (<em>optrA</em>, <em>tet</em>(X4), <em>mcr-3</em>, <em>NDM-5</em>, <em>KPC-2</em>, <em>IMP-4</em>, and <em>VIM-1</em>), an efflux pump gene (<em>tmexD</em>), and an insertion sequence gene (IS<em>1216E</em>), all confirming correct sequence fusion. Using the <em>optrA</em> gene as a model target, long-read epicPCR demonstrated greater precision and fewer false positives than the short-read method in mock communities. It also significantly improved the identification rate of <em>optrA</em> host species from 29.0 % to 54.4 % in anaerobic digestion reactors, while maintaining consistency with short-read epicPCR in profiling host bacterial communities. Moreover, long-read epicPCR identified two novel <em>optrA</em> host species, <em>Lactobacillus amylotrophicus</em> and <em>Streptococcus alactolyticus</em>, in anaerobic effluents, highlighting potential dissemination risks. Notably, this versatile method is envisioned to enhance targeted antimicrobial surveillance and microbial functional dynamics monitoring in the environment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":308,"journal":{"name":"Environment International","volume":"197 ","pages":"Article 109337"},"PeriodicalIF":10.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143418215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}