Extracellular reactive oxygen species generated by LAB-yeast consortium: A sustainable strategy for degrading extracellular antibiotic resistance genes in water.

The environmental dissemination of extracellular antibiotic resistance genes (eARGs) poses a persistent remediation challenge. While biological strategies typically rely on intracellular enzymatic degradation, the potential of microbially driven extracellular chemical oxidation remains largely underexplored. This study investigates a lactic acid bacteria (LAB)-yeast consortium capable of generating extracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) to degrade eARGs without exogenous chemical addition. Under optimized conditions (dissolved oxygen = 4.5 mg L-1, Mn2+ = 50 mg L-1), the consortium accumulated up to 0.63 mg L-1 of extracellular H2O2. This self-sustained oxidative system achieved a 3.2log removal of the plasmid-borne Chl gene. Mechanistic investigations using scavenger quenching and cell-free filtrates identified extracellular H2O2 as the dominant oxidant. Crucially, EPS created a reactive microenvironment that facilitated microbially driven extracellular chemical oxidation, transforming reversible adsorption into permanent oxidative degradation. Unlike conventional biological methods limited by intracellular uptake, this extracellular oxidation strategy overcomes mass transfer barriers, achieving removal efficiencies comparable to advanced oxidation processes. Despite matrix oxidant demand attenuating efficiency, the system maintained 1-2 log gene reductions in river and aquaculture waters. This work elucidates a novel adsorption-oxidation synergy driven by microbial extracellular ROS, offering a green, sustainable strategy for mitigating eARGs in aquatic environments.

• Publication year

  2026

• Venue

  Bioresource Technology

• Publication date

  2026-01-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Chemistry, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.biortech.2026.134007PMID 41544868
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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