Abstract: Antibiotics have played an important role in the prevention and treatment of human and animal diseases as well as the improvement of animal products. However, the mass products and application of antibiotics, especially the abuse in animal industry and clinical medicine, led to the widespread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the environment. They spread widely through conjugation, transposition, and transformation with the help of movable elements such as plasmid, transposon and integrons, resulting in the continuous enhancement of microbial medicinal properties and posing a serious threat to human health and ecological security. At present, great attention has been paid to the impacts of ARGs on human health, but limited research on the ecological risk of ARGs in the environment. Here, the status quo and ecological risks of ARGs pollution were summarized, and the future research priorities in this field were prospected. We hope it could pave the way for further studies and give references for the ecological control and prevention of ARGs pollution.

Key words: antibiotics, antibiotic resistance gene, ecological risk, resistance gene transmission