Occurrence of seventeen veterinary antibiotics and resistant bacterias in manure-fertilized vegetable farm soil in four provinces of China

This study focused on the occurrence of seventeen veterinary antibiotics and six resistant bacterias in soils from the vegetable farms fertilized with animal manure in China. Seventeen veterinary antibiotics, including sulfonamides, quinolones, tetracyclines, macrolides and amphenicols, were detected by high performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometer in all the 53 soil samples collected in four provinces during August 2016. The concentrations of target antibiotics in the soil samples ranged from not detectable to 415.00 μg/kg dry weight with the mean residual levels of the five classes followed order: tetracyclines (82.75 μg/kg) > quinolones (12.78 μg/kg) > macrolides (12.24 μg/kg) > sulfonamides (2.61 μg/kg) > amphenicols (0.06 μg/kg). Moreover, the highest antibiotic levels were found mainly in soil from organic vegetable farms. Risk assessment by using the methods of risk quotient, suggested that oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline, enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin could pose severe ecological risk in sampled soils. Resistant strains were isolated in 30 samples, with Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumonia found the dominant bacterial hosts with resistance genes. Antibiotic resistance genes, including tetA, tetB, qnrS, oqxA, sul1, sul2, ermA and floR, were detected in the strains resistant to: tetracyclines, quinolones, sulfonamides, macrolides and amphenicols resistance, respectively. Overall, there was a correlation between the results of antibiotic risk assessment with the detection of resistance genes from isolated strains in the soils.