Contaminations of organic fertilizers with antibiotic residues, resistance genes, and mobile genetic elements mirroring antibiotic use in livestock?

Pig manures are frequently used as fertilizer or co-substrate in biogas plants (BGPs) and typically contain antibiotic residues (ARs), as well as bacteria carrying resistance genes (RGs) and mobile genetic elements (MGEs). A survey of manures from eight pig fattening and six pig breeding farms and digestates from eight BGPs in Lower Saxony, Germany was conducted to evaluate the link between antibiotic usage and ARs to RGs and MGEs present in organic fertilizers. In total, 11 different antibiotics belonging to six substance classes were applied in the farms investigated. Residue analysis revealed concentrations of tetracycline up to 300 mg kg−1 dry weight (DW) in manures and of doxycycline up to 10.1 mg kg−1 DW in digestates indicating incomplete removal during anaerobic digestion. RGs (sul1, sul2, tet(A), tet(M), tet(X), qacE∆1) were detected in total community DNA of all samples by PCR-Southern blot hybridization. Broad-host range plasmids (IncP-1, IncQ, IncN, and IncW) and integron integrase genes (intI1, intI2) were found in most manure samples with IncN and IncW plasmids being more abundant in manure from pig breeding compared to pig fattening farms. IntI1, IncQ, and IncW plasmids were also detected in all digestates, while IncP-1, IncN, and LowGC plasmids were detected only sporadically. Our findings strongly reinforce the need for further research to identify mitigation strategies to reduce the level of contamination of organic fertilizers with ARs and transferable RGs that are applied to soil and that might influence the mobile resistome of the plant microbiome.