The emergence of antibiotic resistance in retort to environmental pollutants during wastewater treatment still remains elusive. Here, we first to investigate the emergence of antibiotic resistance in an environmental non-pathogenic bacterium, Pseudoxanthomonas mexicana isolated from a lab-scale bioreactor treating wastewater containing streptomycin. The molecular mechanism of antibiotic resistance development was evaluated in its genomic, transcriptional, and proteomic levels. The streptomycin resistant (SR) strain showed strong resistance to streptomycin (MIC > 600 μg/mL) as well to sulfamethoxazole, ampicillin, and kanamycin (≥250 μg/mL). A 13.4 kb class-1-integron array consisting of a new arrangement of gene cassette (IS6100-sul1-aadA2-catB3-aacA1-2-aadB-int1-IS256-int) linked with Tn5393c transposon was identified in the SR strain, which has only been reported in clinical pathogens so far. iTRAQ-LC-MS/MS proteomics revealed 22 up-regulated proteins in the SR strain growing under 100 mg L-1 streptomycin, involving antibiotic resistance, toxin production, stress response, and ribosomal protein synthesis. At the mRNA level, elevated expressions of ARGs (strA, strB, and aadB) and 30S-ribosomal protein genes (rpsA and rpsU) were observed in the SR strain. The results highlighted the genomic plasticity and multifaceted regulatory mechanism employed by P. mexicana in adaptation to high-level streptomycin during biological wastewater treatment.
Keywords: Class 1 In-Tn5393c array; Proteomics; Pseudoxanthomonas mexicana; Streptomycin resistance; Whole genome sequencing.
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