近日，美国俄克拉荷马大学诺曼分校Jizhong Zhou团队揭示了长达十年的气候变暖加速了草地土壤的抗生素耐药性。相关论文发表在2026年4月22日出版的《自然》杂志上。

土壤是抗生素抗性基因的关键储存库，这些基因受微生物相互作用和环境条件的强烈影响，因此对干扰高度敏感。尽管气候变暖被认为是对微生物群落及其功能最显著的干扰之一，但其对土壤抗性组的影响仍知之甚少。

研究组利用综合的实验与计算方法，研究了长达十年的实验性增温对草地土壤中抗生素抗性基因的影响。结果显示，增温条件下抗性基因的丰度显著增加了23.9%，尤其是糖肽类和利福霉素类抗性基因。增温特别富集了放线菌门宿主（包括多种潜在的植物病原菌），并增强了抗性基因的移动性。大规模、前所未有的基于分离株的表型分析也验证了增温提高了细菌对多种抗生素的耐药性。

进一步的机制分析表明，增温主要通过与适应性性状（如耐热性和氮同化）物理连锁的抗性基因共选择，以及耐热性基因的正选择来提高抗性基因的丰度，并且这一过程可通过水平基因转移进一步放大。综上所述，这些发现令人信服地证明，气候变暖在基因组、生态和进化等多个层面上显著加速了土壤抗生素耐药性的发展，对气候变暖背景下的公共卫生和环境可持续性具有广泛影响。

附：英文原文

Title: Decade-long warming accelerates antibiotic resistance in grassland soils

Author: Wu, Linwei, Mu, Da-Shuai, An, Jing, Wang, Yanan, Fan, Xiaomin, Lu, De-Chen, Zhang, Ya, Xie, Yinan, Michael, Jonathan, Curtis, Daniel, Fan, Yupeng, Wang, Yajiao, Guo, Xue, Tu, Qichao, Yan, Qingyun, Gao, Qun, He, Zhili, Deng, Ye, Xue, Kai, Wu, Liyou, Ning, Daliang, Tao, Xuanyu, Yang, Yunfeng, Zhou, Jizhong

Issue&Volume: 2026-04-22

Abstract: Soils are critical reservoirs of antibiotic-resistance genes (ARGs)1,2, which are strongly shaped by microbial interactions and environmental conditions and are therefore highly sensitive to disturbance2,3,4,5,6. Although climate warming is recognized as one of the most significant disturbances to microbial communities and their functions7,8,9,10, its impacts on soil resistomes remain poorly understood. Here we investigated the effects of decade-long experimental warming on ARGs in grassland soils using integrated experimental and computational approaches. Our results revealed that ARG abundance substantially increased (23.9%) under warming—particularly glycopeptide- and rifamycin-resistance genes. Warming specifically enriched Actinomycetota hosts, including various potential plant pathogens, and enhanced ARG mobility. Large-scale unprecedented isolates-based phenotypic analyses also validated that warming increased bacterial resistance to multiple antibiotics. Further mechanistic analyses revealed that warming increased ARG abundance primarily through co-selection of resistance genes physically linked to adaptive traits (for example, thermal tolerance and nitrogen assimilation) and positive selection for thermal tolerance genes, which could be further amplified via horizontal gene transfer. Together, these findings convincingly demonstrate that climate warming substantially accelerates soil antibiotic resistance at genomic, ecological and evolutionary levels, with broad implications for public health and environmental sustainability in a warming world.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10413-x

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10413-x