Widespread occurrence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) has become an important clinical issue. Studying ARGs in pristine soil environments can help better understand the intrinsic soil resistome. In this study, ten soil samples were collected from a high elevation and relative pristine Tibetan area, and metagenomic sequencing and bioinformatic analyses were conducted to investigate the microbial diversity, the abundance and diversity of ARGs, and the mobility potential of ARGs as indicated by different mobile genetic elements (MGEs). A total of 48 ARG types with relative abundance of 0.05–0.28 copies of ARG/copy of 16S rRNA genes were detected in Tibetan soil samples. The observed ARGs were mainly associated with antibiotics including glycopeptide and rifamycin; the most abundant ARGs were vanRO and vanSO. Low abundance of MGEs and potential plasmid-related ARGs indicated low horizontal gene transfer (HGT) risk of ARGs in the pristine soil. Pearson correlation and redundancy analyses showed that temperature and total organic carbon (TOC) were the major environmental factors controlling both microbial diversity and ARG abundance and diversity.

中文翻译：

---

土壤宏基因组学揭示了原始青藏高原土壤中抗生素抗性基因的丰度，多样性和迁移潜力。

抗生素抗性基因（ARG）的广泛出现已成为重要的临床问题。在原始土壤环境中研究ARGs可以帮助更好地了解土壤固有的电阻系统。在这项研究中，从高海拔和相对原始的藏族地区收集了十个土壤样品，并进行了宏基因组测序和生物信息学分析，以研究微生物多样性，ARG的丰度和多样性以及ARG的迁移潜力，如不同流动遗传元件（MGE）。在藏族土壤样品中共检出48种ARG类型，相对含量为ARG 0.05 / 0.28拷贝/ 16S rRNA基因拷贝。观察到的ARGs主要与包括糖肽和利福霉素在内的抗生素有关。最丰富的ARG是vanRO和vanSO。低水平的MGEs和潜在的质粒相关ARGs表示原始土壤中ARGs的水平基因转移（HGT）风险低。Pearson相关性和冗余度分析表明，温度和总有机碳（TOC）是控制微生物多样性和ARG丰度和多样性的主要环境因素。