Chiral pesticides selectively influence the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes: An overlooked environmental risk

The global spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) poses a critical threat to public health and environmental safety. Among environmental factors, the widespread use of chiral pesticides has raised ecological concerns, yet their enantioselective impacts on ARGs propagation remain largely unexplored. Here, we investigate how chiral pesticides influence microbial ARGs dissemination at the enantiomeric level. Using flurtamone as a model, we successfully separated and quantitatively analyzed its enantiomers (R-flurtamone and S-flurtamone) and evaluated their effects at environmentally relevant concentrations (0-80 μg/L). Remarkably, R-flurtamone significantly enhanced the horizontal transfer of ARGs, surpassing the effects of Rac-flurtamone, whereas S-flurtamone exerted negligible influence. Mechanistic insights revealed that R-flurtamone is more easily recognized by bacterial cells and induces more cellular stress responses. Additionally, R-flurtamone induced increasing cell membrane ..., , , # Data from: Chiral pesticides selectively influence the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes: An overlooked environmental risk

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2z34tmpwg](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2z34tmpwg)

## Description of the data and file structure

All files are in Excel or .tif format.

Fig1—High-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC) and circular dichroism (CD) spectra of the flurtamone enantiomers;

Fig2—Impacts of chiral herbicide flurtamone exposure on the transformation of ARGs; 

Fig3—Influence of the flurtamone enantiomers on cell membrane permeability;

Fig4—Molecular dynamics simulation of the interaction between flurtamone enantiomers molecules and cell membranes; 

Fig5—Oxidative stress and SOS response induced by the flurtamone enantiomers;

Fig6—Changes in energy diving force in presence of the flurtamone enantiomers;

Fig7—Molecular docking of *R/S*-flurtamone with Tar and OmpC;

SI-FigS1—Influence of *R/S*-flurtamone on the cell vi...,