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Abstract
Antibiotic resistance and heavy metal pollution in water bodies are becoming more prominent concerns throughout the world, since heavy metal tolerance in bacteria is a contributing factor to the emergence of antimicrobial resistance. Recently, researchers established a link between heavy metal exposure and antibiotic resistance in bacteria; in both cases, similar mechanisms exist to allow bacteria to survive in adverse settings while producing antibiotic resistance. Several co-resistance mechanisms may be found on the same plasmid or genetic element, or they may be found on different chromosomal materials. Heavy metals are released into the environment by several industrial and domestic activities, which pollutes and contaminates land and water bodies. Heavy metal concentrations in bodies of water are continuing to grow, exposing the present bacterial variety to tolerance mechanisms and allowing them to develop a larger degree of resistance to heavy metals over time. When these bacteria are exposed to antibiotics in the future, they will activate and express previously developed mechanisms, which will enable them to survive at high dosages with relative ease in the future. Antibiotic and heavy metal resistance in aquatic bacteria is increasing, which may have ramifications for environmental, therapeutic, and drug development investigations, among other things.