Tea polyphenols and catechins postpone evolution of antibiotic resistance genes and alter microbial community under stress of tetracycline

Abstract

Relying on the high mobility of water flow, the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the water tends to be exacerbated and enlarged. It caused negative impacts on a wider scope of the environment. The ARGs dissemination monitoring and the methods efficiently reducing their concentration in water became the focus of interest. Green chemicals with antibacterial effects such as tea polyphenols (TPs) and catechins (CA) have been considered as auxiliary disinfectants for ARGs removal in the water environment. However, the antibacterial performance of TPs and CA under the stress of external antibiotics still lacks sufficient research. The results show that more operational taxonomic units can be observed in water samples with TPs and CA than in those without the ingredients under pressure of tetracycline. An unexpected increase along with the increase of ARGs concentrations and the diversity of microbial communities under the low-concentration TPs or CA (1 mg/L). Besides, under the stress of tetracycline, the inhibition of TPs was detected to be strengthened for increase of inti1 and tetC but weakened towards for the increase of tetA. Whilst CA substantially diminished abundances of tetC and tetA under tetracycline pressure. This research demonstrated that TPs and CA are able to assuage development of ARGs under the pressure of antibiotic in water system.

Keywords: Antibiotic resistance genes; Catechin; Microbial community structure; Tea polyphenol; Tetracycline.