Abstract:
Abstract Soils are exposed to various types of chemical contaminants due to anthropogenic
activities; however, research on persistent organic pollutants and the existence of antibiotic
resistance genes (ARGs) is limited. To our knowledge, the present work for the first time
focused on the bioremediation of soil co-contaminated with pyrene and tetracycline/
sulfonamide-resistance genes. After 90 days of incubation, the pyrene concentration and the
abundance of the four ARGs (tetW, tetM, sulI, and sulII) significantly decreased in different
treatment conditions (p< 0.05). The greatest pyrene removal (47.8%) and greatest decrease
in ARG abundance (from 10− 7 to 10− 8 ARG copies per 16S rRNA copy) were observed in
microcosms with a combination of bacterial and sophorolipid treatment. Throughout the
incubation, pyrene bioaccessibility constantly declined in the microcosm inoculated with …