| dc.description.abstract | On August 25, 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Port Aransas, Texas and introduced 130 cm of rainfall to the Houston area. Hurricane Harvey’s record rainfall caused city-wide flooding and large quantities of stormwater runoff, bringing an incredible amount of contaminated waters into Galveston Bay. The contaminated flood waters contained high levels of soil and sediment bacteria, as well as fecal contamination, which are usually associated with a higher prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes. Antibiotic resistance genes such as vanA (resistance to vancomycin), sul1 (resistance to sulfonamides) and tetA (resistance to tetracycline) are commonly found throughout the environment due to the heavy usage of vancomycin, sulfonamide chemical groups, and tetracyclines antibiotics. Here, metagenomic data sampled every week for five weeks after Hurricane Harvey from a transect performed in Galveston Bay were mined for the presence of antibiotic resistance genes. The hypothesis was that there would be an increase in antibiotic resistance genes in the Bay right after Hurricane Harvey due to the input of terrestrial and wastewater-related microbes introduced into the ecosystem. Antibiotic resistance genes sul1, vanA, and tetA were detected at each sample station from the San Jacinto River to the Gulf of Mexico, with sul1 being the most abundant antibiotic resistance genes observed throughout the samples. Unexpectedly, there was no increase in the prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes after Hurricane Harvey. However, the genes found in the environment had a great diversity and differed from the ones found in clinical isolates, suggesting that there is a high potential for bacteria to acquire novel resistance genes. The data from this experiment will contribute to the understanding of the dispersal of antibiotic resistant genes in the environment after heavy rain events. | |
