Antimicrobial Resistance Genes in Bangkok Toilet Waste Across Income Areas

Bangkok, Thailand, provides a setting for a study comparing antimicrobial resistance gene abundance in toilet waste across low-, middle-, and high-income areas. The analysis is based on 27 metagenomic samples collected from nine sites during March–April 2023, measuring resistance gene abundance in fragments per kilobase per million mapped reads (FPKM). The work by Narong Nuanmuang highlights higher resistance gene levels in low-income groups and serves as a tool for city-level AMR surveillance.

Use Cases

• Compare antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) FPKM abundance across low-, middle-, and high-income site classifications to model socioeconomic associations.
• Analyze the distribution of metal and disinfectant resistance gene FPKM values from metagenomic sequences to assess environmental co-resistance.
• Identify differences in individual ARG prevalence between the nine sampled sites to pinpoint location-specific resistance patterns.
• Use the measured FPKM of acquired and intrinsic ARGs, including genes for novel antibiotics, for benchmarking wastewater surveillance methods.

Strengths

• Data originates from 27 distinct toilet waste samples, providing a multi-site comparison.
• Samples are explicitly categorized by income level (low, middle, high) across nine sites in Bangkok.
• Analysis includes quantified abundance metrics (FPKM) for antibiotic, metal, and disinfectant resistance genes.
• Temporal scope is clearly defined as March–April 2023.

Limitations

• Small sample size of 27 samples may limit statistical power for broad generalizations.
• Geographic scope is limited to Bangkok, Thailand, reducing direct applicability to other regions.
• Data is provided in a DOCX document (2.9 MB), not a structured tabular format, requiring extraction for computational analysis.

Provenance

Source

figshare, author Narong Nuanmuang.

Collection Method

Metagenomic sequencing of toilet waste samples, followed by quality control and mapping to resistance gene and bacterial taxonomy databases.

Time Range

March–April 2023.

Freshness

Last updated March 2026.

Geography

Bangkok, Thailand.