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Tick-vectored mobilization of antibiotic resistance genes: transboundary dissemination across wildlife-livestock-vector-environment interfaces

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Abstract

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are emerging as critical environmental contaminants across diverse ecological interfaces. To dissect evidence of microbiome and resistome in the different interconnected interfaces of ecotone, we conducted a field investigation of the microbiome and resistome of marmots, along with coexisting domestic sheep, ticks and their cave soils within the same ecological habitat. We used shotgun metagenomics with metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), species-resolved binning, ARG identification, source-tracker analyses, and horizontal gene transfer (HGT) network analysis to examine potential cross-interface dissemination. The composition of the mammalian gut microbiome was primarily comprised of Firmicutes, while ticks and soils exhibited distinct clusters that were predominantly dominated by Proteobacteria. The observed resistance mechanisms manifested niche-specific patterns, with target alteration predominating in mammals, whereas ticks exhibited elevated antibiotic inactivation/efflux strategies, and soils prioritized efflux mechanisms. Metagenomic assembly from these four groups yielded 5339 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), of which 1481 met medium- or high-quality standards. Ticks exhibited 72% species similarity and 52% ARG concordance with marmots, while soils conserved 32% ARGs and >86% toxin genes with mammals. Our findings demonstrate that the transboundary dissemination of ARGs across different ecological interfaces, necessitates integrated surveillance of antimicrobial resistance at ecological boundaries to mitigate public health risks.

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Data availability

The sequence data in this study have been deposited into the CNGB Sequence Archive of China National GeneBank Database (CNGBdb) with accession number CNP0009025.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 82273689 and 82473689), Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi (grant no. 2024SF-YBXM-289), and Wuwei City Science and Technology Plan Project (No. WW25Z01SF027).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Zhenhua Lu, Ruishan Li.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, The Ministry of Education Key Lab of Hazard Assessment and Control in Special Operational Environment, The Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and Protection, School of Public Health, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, China

    Zhenhua Lu, Ruishan Li, Shiyu Li, Shiwei Sun, Jiacheng Liu, Lele Zhao, Shijie Chen, Kun Liu & Zhongjun Shao

  2. Wuwei City Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wuwei, China

    Kaichun Zhou & Xiang Yuan

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Contributions

Zhenhua Lu: writing—original draft, software, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, and visualization. Ruishan Li: investigation, data curation, and writing—original draft. Kaichun Zhou, Shiyu Li, Shijie Chen, and Shiwei Sun: methodology and investigation. Jiacheng Liu and Lele Zhao: methodology. Xiang Yuan: resources, investigation, and supervision. Kun Liu and Zhongjun Shao: writing—review and editing, project administration, and funding acquisition.

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Lu, Z., Li, R., Zhou, K. et al. Tick-vectored mobilization of antibiotic resistance genes: transboundary dissemination across wildlife-livestock-vector-environment interfaces.
npj Biofilms Microbiomes (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41522-026-00986-w

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