Herbicide promotes the conjugative transfer of multi-resistance genes by facilitating cellular contact and plasmid transfer.

The global dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), especially via plasmid-mediated horizontal transfer, is becoming a pervasive health threat. While our previous study found that herbicides can accelerate the horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of ARGs in soil bacteria, the underlying mechanisms by which herbicides promote the HGT of ARGs across and within bacterial genera are still unclear. Here, the underlying mechanism associated with herbicide-promoted HGT was analyzed by detecting intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, extracellular polymeric substance composition, cell membrane integrity and proton motive force combined with genome-wide RNA sequencing.