Activity of agroindustrial chemicals on gut bacteria
We report the impact of 1076 pollutants spanning diverse chemistries and indicated applications on 22 prevalent gut bacteria. We observed 588 interactions involving 168 chemicals. Fungicides and industrial chemicals showed the largest impact with approximately 30% exhibiting antibacterial properties. This standardized dataset enables the use of machine learning to predict antimicrobial activity of pesticides. Mechanistically, genome-wide chemical-genetic screens indicated membrane transport and secondary metabolite biosynthesis as modulators of chemical toxicity. We observed genetic responses in transport pathways that are conserved in Bacteroidales and linked to resistance to antibiotics.