The spread of antibiotic resistance among infection-causing bacteria poses the risk of losing the effectiveness of antibiotics as medicines. New knowledge about bacterial resistance in soil, as a natural reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes, can contribute to solving this global health and veterinary problem, where the trait can be transferred to clinically significant pathogenic species due to horizontal gene transfer. The profiles of the phenotypic resistance of typical soil bacteria, actinomycetes, to a specific set of antibiotics from different classes and different mechanisms of action are characterized in a comparative aspect. In total, the stability profiles of 152 natural isolates obtained from soils of different districts of the Kirov region were determined. The source for their isolation was soil samples taken from specially protected natural areas (natural ecosystems) and sites typifying various types of economic activity (transformed ecosystems). Equal samples of isolates with features characteristic of the genus Streptomyces were analyzed from each soil sample. Using multidimensional statistical methods, it was shown that the level of Streptomyces resistance to each of the seven antibiotics (nalidixic acid, tetracycline, polymyxin, trimethoprim, lincomycin, amoxicillin, and streptomycin) significantly (p < 0.05) determines both the geographical area of strain isolation and the type of ecosystem (natural or transformed). A general pattern in the surveyed area was the high efficacy of streptomycin and tetracycline, and the low Streptomyces low sensitivity to nalidixic acid. Natural forest ecosystems, as well as economically transformed ecosystems, are enriched with Streptomyces strains with multiple antibiotic resistance. The practical significance of the results obtained for ecology and monitoring lies in the statistically proven possibility of using the stability of soil Streptomyces as an indicator of anthropogenic load on the soil.
ISSN 1995-4301
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