Combined pesticide pollution enhances the dissemination of the phage-encoded antibiotic resistome in the soil under nitrogen deposition

Summary

Phage-mediated dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) intensifies health threat in the environment. Increasing amounts of pesticides are entering the soil ecosystem, yet their potential influence on phage-mediated ARG spread, particularly under conditions of global change, remains poorly understood. In this study, we performed a long-term field experiment simulating pesticide contamination under nitrogen deposition and examined the role of soil phages in ARG spread and host adaptation using metagenomic and viromic sequencing. Combined pesticide markedly elevated the abundance of phage-encoded ARGs under nitrogen deposition. By enhancing phage-host interactions and increasing the co-occurrence of auxiliary metabolic genes with ARGs, phages may further facilitate the transfer of