Assessing antimicrobial resistance in sewage and wastewater effluent in Antarctica

Antarctica, often referred to as the last great wilderness, is experiencing increasing levels of human visitation through tourism and expansion of national scientific operations. Therefore, it is critical to assess the impact that these itinerant visitors have on the natural environment. This includes monitoring human-mediated antimicrobial resistance (AMR), particularly around population concentrations such as visitor sites and Antarctic research stations. This study takes a sequencing discovery-led approach to investigate levels and extent of AMR around the Rothera Research Station (operated by the UK) on the Antarctic Peninsula and determine whether they originate from natural or anthropogenic sources. Long-read Nanopore MinION sequencing was used in a metagenomics approach to identify antimicrobial resistance genes in biofilm and sediment from sites around the Rothera sewage treatment plant. These data were then assessed for genes resistant to different drug classes and the resistance mechanisms of the particular genes identified.