Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are found in marine as well as terrestrial bacteria. Bivalves are known to accumulate chemical pollutants and pathogenic microbes, however, the fate of ARGs in bivalves after the intake of ARG-possessing bacteria is not known. Here we show that the copy number of oxytetracycline resistance gene tet(M) increased rapidly in the clam digestive tract by filtering water, then remained constant over 96 h in a tank experiment even with the addition of tet(M)-possessing bacteria every 24 h. >99.9% of the added tet(M) was decomposed, reaching a balanced state. Environmental sampling of mussel digestive tract and seawater supported the hypothesis that tet(M) was decomposed in bivalves as tet(M) was present in seawater from April to October at a concentration of 10⁻⁵ to 10⁻⁶ copies/16S, whereas tet(M) in mussels was mostly below the detection limit. Two (April) and three (July and October) individual mussels were positive for tet(M) with a concentration equivalent to that of seawater. We therefore conclude that bivalves do not accumulate tet(M) from seawater.

在海洋和陆地细菌中都发现了抗生素抗性基因（ARG）。已知双壳类动物会积累化学污染物和病原微生物，但是，尚不知道双侧壳类动物在摄取带有ARG的细菌后的命运。在这里，我们显示，通过过滤水，蛤et消化道中土霉素抗性基因tet（M）的拷贝数迅速增加，然后在水箱实验中甚至在每24小时添加一次具有tet（M）的细菌的情况下，在罐内实验中保持96小时不变。H。大于99.9％的添加的tet（M）分解，达到平衡状态。贻贝消化道和海水的环境采样支持以下假设：双壳类动物中的tet（M）分解为tet（M）在4月至10月的海水中以10 ^-5至10 ^-6拷贝/ 16S的浓度存在，而贻贝中的tet（M）大多低于检出限。二（4月）和三个（七月和十月）个人蚌阳性TET（M）与浓度相当于海水的。因此，我们得出的结论是，双壳类动物不会从海水中积累tet（M）。