{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,2]],"date-time":"2026-09-02T00:26:17Z","timestamp":1788308777929,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":94,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,4]],"date-time":"2023-04-04T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1680566400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR)","award":["FB160C"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["FB160C"]}]},{"name":"Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR)","award":["FB157C"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["FB157C"]}]},{"name":"Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR)","award":["PN20-43BO-01"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PN20-43BO-01"]}]},{"name":"Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR)","award":["PR18-14SE-01"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PR18-14SE-01"]}]},{"name":"Kuwait Foundation for Advancement of Science","award":["FB160C"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["FB160C"]}]},{"name":"Kuwait Foundation for Advancement of Science","award":["FB157C"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["FB157C"]}]},{"name":"Kuwait Foundation for Advancement of Science","award":["PN20-43BO-01"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PN20-43BO-01"]}]},{"name":"Kuwait Foundation for Advancement of Science","award":["PR18-14SE-01"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PR18-14SE-01"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IJMS"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the biggest threats to human health worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO, Geneva, Switzerland) has launched the \u201cOne-Health\u201d approach, which encourages assessment of antibiotic-resistant genes (ARGs) within environments shared by human-animals-plants-microbes to constrain and alleviate the development of AMR. Aerosols as a medium to disseminate ARGs, have received minimal attention. In the present study, we investigated the distribution and abundance of ARGs in indoor and outdoor aerosols collected from an urban location in Kuwait and the interior of three hospitals. The high throughput quantitative polymerase chain reaction (HT-qPCR) approach was used for this purpose. The results demonstrate the presence of aminoglycoside, beta-lactam, fluoroquinolone, tetracycline, macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B (MLSB), multidrug-resistant (MDR) and vancomycin-resistant genes in the aerosols. The most dominant drug class was beta-lactam and the genes were IMP-2-group (0.85), Per-2 group (0.65), OXA-54 (0.57), QnrS (0.50) and OXA-55 (0.55) in the urban non-clinical settings. The indoor aerosols possessed a richer diversity (Observed, Chao1, Shannon\u2019s and Pielou\u2019s evenness) of ARGs compared to the outdoors. Seasonal variations (autumn vs. winter) in relative abundances and types of ARGs were also recorded (R2 of 0.132 at p &lt; 0.08). The presence of ARGs was found in both the inhalable (2.1 \u00b5m, 1.1 \u00b5m, 0.7 \u00b5m and &lt; 0.3 \u00b5m) and respirable (&gt;9.0 \u00b5m, 5.8 \u00b5m, 4.7 \u00b5m and 3.3 \u00b5m) size fractions within hospital aerosols. All the ARGs are of pathogenic bacterial origin and are hosted by pathogenic forms. The findings present baseline data and underpin the need for detailed investigations looking at aerosol as a vehicle for ARG dissemination among human and non-human terrestrial biota.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijms24076756","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,5]],"date-time":"2023-04-05T02:11:41Z","timestamp":1680660701000},"page":"6756","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":21,"title":["Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Aerosols: Baseline from Kuwait"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"24","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0752-4774","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nazima","family":"Habibi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Environment and Life Science Research Centre, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Safat 13109, Kuwait"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4698-2225","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Saif","family":"Uddin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Environment and Life Science Research Centre, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Safat 13109, Kuwait"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Montaha","family":"Behbehani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Environment and Life Science Research Centre, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Safat 13109, Kuwait"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0726-2770","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mohamed","family":"Kishk","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Environment and Life Science Research Centre, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Safat 13109, Kuwait"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Nasreem","family":"Abdul Razzack","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Environment and Life Science Research Centre, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Safat 13109, Kuwait"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Farhana","family":"Zakir","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Environment and Life Science Research Centre, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Safat 13109, Kuwait"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Anisha","family":"Shajan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Environment and Life Science Research Centre, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Safat 13109, Kuwait"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,4]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"301","DOI":"10.1038\/s12276-021-00569-z","article-title":"Antibiotic resistome from the One-Health perspective: Understanding and controlling antimicrobial resistance transmission","volume":"53","author":"Kim","year":"2021","journal-title":"Exp. 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