07 Nov 2023 --- Scientists from the University of Warwick, UK, have found microbial “hitchhikers” harboring antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) in riverine plastic waste. The findings add to evidence that plastic pollution has increased the capacity of plastics to serve as vessels for pathogenic bacteria and reservoirs for ARGs. In- and ex-situ incubations were used to characterize the riverine plastisphere taxonomically — a branch of science concerned with classification, especially of organisms and systematics — and functionally. This was done to determine whether antibiotics within the water influenced the ARG profiles in these microbiomes and how these compared to those on natural surfaces such as wood and their planktonic counterparts.
