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Is Plastic Pollution in Aquatic and Terrestrial Environments a Driver for the Transmission of Pathogens and the Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance? Anutthaman Parthasarathy,† Anna Christina Tyler,† Matthew J. Hoffman,‡ Michael A. Savka,† and André O. Hudson* †
The Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester New York United States The School of Mathematical Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester New York United States Association with plastic has the potential to affect both marine and freshwater bacteria at the genomic, physiological and microbial community structure levels (Figure 1). In some cases, biofilm communities that form on marine plastics are distinct from the surrounding water, but resemble those that attach to other substrates such as glass. Some taxa, including Vibrio spp. and other potentially harmful organisms, prefer to colonize polyethylene terephthalate (PET) instead of glass. While the widely used 16S rDNA barcoding methods for classifying bacteria have been criticized for not being sensitive enough to detect human pathogens, a later oligotyping study of the 16S data for the genus Vibrio confirmed more specific habitat selection of animal pathogens on plastics.3 The genera Pseudomonas, Aeromonas, Arcobacter, Zymophilus, Aquabacterium, and Campylobacter spp. have been associated with riverine plastics, the raising concerns about transport of pathogen-enriched plastics. Indeed, microplastics found downstream of wastewater plants had higher occurrences of bacterial taxa associated with both plastic decomposition and gastrointestinal diseases than non-plastic flotsam and the surround-
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lastics have become omnipresent in the environment due to widespread domestic and industrial usage. Of an estimated 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic manufactured between 1950 and 2015, 90% or more entered the wastewater stream. Subtropical gyres, arctic ocean waters, the sea floor, arctic sea ice, freshwater lakes, rivers, beaches, sediments, terrestrial soil, and urban atmospheres all harbor microplastics (
