Antibiotic resistance genes in seawater and sediments along the Antarctic peninsula

This repository contains 16S rRNA gene sequencing data generated within the framework of the study “Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Seawater and Sediments Along the Antarctic Peninsula.” The aim of the study was to assess the abundance and distribution of antibiotic resistance genes (blaTEM, sul1, and tetW), as well as to characterize microbial communities considered indicators of fecal contamination in seawater and sediment samples collected along the Antarctic Peninsula (between 62°S and 67°S). A total of 57 samples were analyzed: 15 seawater samples from a local monitoring campaign, 22 seawater samples from a latitudinal transect (including both 3 µm and 0.22 µm filters), and 20 sediment samples from the same transect.

All samples were sent to Novogene GmbH (Munich, Germany), where downstream molecular procedures were carried out. PCR amplification targeted the hypervariable V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene using a modified version of the universal primers 515F (GTGYCAGCMGCCGCGGTAA; Parada et al., 2016) and 806R (GGACTACNVGGGTWTCTAAT; Apprill et al., 2015). Complete library preparation was performed, and sequencing was carried out on the Illumina MiSeq platform using paired-end 2 × 250 bp reads, generating approximately 30,000 paired-end reads per sample.