Heavy Metal and Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria Isolated from the Environment of Swine Farms

The aim of the present study was to determine the level of heavy metal resistance and antibiotic resistance patterns of bacterial isolates from environment of swine farms in China. A total of 284 bacteria were isolated, 158 from manure, 62 from soil and 64 from wastewater in different swine farm samples. All the isolates were tested for resistant against eight heavy metals. From the total of 284 isolates, maximum bacterial isolates were found to be resistant to Zn2+ (98.6%) followed by Cu2+ (97.5%), Cd2+ (68.3%), Mn2+ (60.2%), Pb2+(51.4%), Ni2+(41.5%) and Cr3+(45.1%). However, most of the isolates were sensitive to Co2+. Meanwhile, all the isolates were tested for sensitively to nine antibiotics. The results shows that most isolates were sensitive to cefoxitin and oxacillin, but resistance to tetracycline, ampicillin, gentamicin, amikacin, erythromycin, clindamycin were widespread. Multiple resistant to metals and antibiotics were also observed in this study. Most isolates were tolerant to different concentrations of various heavy metals and antibiotics. Our results confirmed that environment of swine farms in China has a significant proportion of heavy metal and antibiotic resistant bacteria, and these bacteria constitute a potential risk for swine health and public health.