Molecular mechanism of antibiotic resistance induced by mono- and twin-chained quaternary ammonium compounds.
Sci Total Environ
; 832: 155090, 2022 Aug 01.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1773765
ABSTRACT
The usage of quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) as disinfectants has increased dramatically since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, leading to potentially accelerated emergence of antibiotic resistance. Long-term exposure to subinhibitory level QACs can lead to multidrug resistance, but the contribution of mutagenesis to resistance evolution is obscure. In this study, we subcultured E. coli K-12 under subinhibitory (0.25 × and 0.5 × Minimum Inhibitory Concentration, MIC) or inhibitory (1 × and 2 × MIC) concentrations of benzalkonium chloride (BAC, mono-chained) or didecyldimethylammonium chloride (DDAC, twin-chained) for 60 days. The sensitivity of QAC-adapted cells to five typical antibiotics decreased significantly, and in particular, the MIC of rifampicin increased by 85 times. E. coli adapted faster to BAC but developed 20-167% higher antibiotic resistance with 56% more mutations under DDAC exposure. The broader mutations induced by QACs, including negative regulators (acrR, marR, soxR, and crp), outer membrane proteins and transporters (mipA and sbmA), and RNA polymerase (rpoB and rpoC), potentially contributed to the high multi-drug resistance. After QACs stresses were removed, the phenotypic resistance induced by subinhibitory concentrations of QACs was reversible, whereas that induced by inhibitory concentrations of QACs was irreversible. The different patterns and molecular mechanism of antibiotic resistance induced by BAC and DDAC is informative to estimating the risks of broader QACs present at varied concentrations in the environment.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Disinfectants
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Sci Total Environ
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
J.scitotenv.2022.155090
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