Distribution, Sources and Risks of Bacteria and Their Antimicrobial Resistance Genes in the Environment, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Antibiotics (ISSN 2079-6382). This special issue belongs to the section "Mechanism and Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2026 | Viewed by 13

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Sanitary Engineering, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Gdansk University of Technology, 80-233 Gdansk, Poland
Interests: environmental microbiology; antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs); micropollutants; water treatment; detection and monitoring of pharmaceutical‑resistant bacteria in diverse environmental niches

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Guest Editor
Genetics and Marine Biotechnology Department, Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Powstańców Warszawy 55, 81-712 Sopot, Poland
Interests: environmental microbiology; antibiotic resistance genes; marine microbiology; Vibrio spp.; integrons’ antibiotic action; Aeromonas spp.

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Guest Editor
Leeds Institute of Medical Research, St James Campus, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
Interests: metagenomics; metatranscriptomics; bioinformatics; biostatistics; microbiome

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Following the success of the first volume of this Special Issue, we are pleased to launch the second edition, entitled “Distribution, Sources and Risks of Bacteria and Their Antimicrobial Resistance Genes in the Environment, 2nd Edition”.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious threat to human and animal health, and its investigation requires a One Health approach from an integrated perspective in which human, animal, and environmental compartments are interconnected. There is growing interest in the role that the environment plays in the selection, spread, and transmission of AMR to humans. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) have been suggested as emerging environmental contaminants and potential health threats. Several ARB and ARG sources have been recognized, including sewage water discharged from homes, hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, and animal feedlots. However, there are still gaps in the reliable and efficient assessment of risks to human health from exposure to ARB and ARGs in the environment, as well as in the programs and tools used to systematically measure and record antimicrobial contamination and ARB in the environment. Filling in these critical research gaps is a prerequisite for the development of mitigation strategies and public health measures to limit environmental contamination from antimicrobial residues and AMR organisms.

Therefore, this Special Issue welcomes collaborative submissions from different research fields that further study and clarify the risks for AMR associated with the environmental compartment, with special reference to distribution dynamics, sources and transmission risks of bacteria, and their antimicrobial resistance genes in the environment.

Dr. Filip Gamoń
Dr. Ewa Kotlarska
Dr. Suparna Mitra
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and One Health
  • AMR dissemination in the environment
  • risk assessment of AMR in environmental reservoirs (agroecosystems)
  • antibiotic-resistant pathogenic and resident bacteria
  • antibiotic-resistance gene (ARG) transfer
  • ARG quantification
  • AMR and food/feed chain
  • antibiotics in animals
  • agrochemicals
  • antibiotic residues

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