High-throughput sequencing data and antibiotic resistance mechanisms of soil microbial communities in non-irrigated and irrigated soils with raw sewage in African cities

High-throughput sequencing data of soil microbial communities in non-irrigated and irrigated soils with raw sewage in African cities are presented in this report. These data were collected to study the potential of wastewater use in urban agriculture to disseminate bacterial resistance in soil. Soil samples were collected in three cities in two African countries. Each city had two sectors (irrigated and non-irrigated). After collection, biomass samples were purified, DNA from soil was extracted, quantified and sequenced using multiplex Illumina high-throughput sequencing. The sequence count of the six metagenome datasets ranges from 3,258,523,350 bp to 4,120,454,250 bp; the mean sequence length post quality control average was 149 ± 3 bp. The mechanisms of resistance encoded by the identified antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the metagenomic data were dominated by antibiotic inactivation enzymes (64.7% and 71.9%), followed by antibiotic target replacement (14.7% and 12.5%), antibiotic target protection (11.8% and 9.4%) and efflux pumps (6.3% and 8.8%) in bacterial DNA isolated from irrigated and non-irrigated fields, respectively. The datasets will be useful for the scientific community working in the area of bacterial resistance dissemination from the environment. They can be used for further understanding of bacterial drug-resistance gene prevalence and acquisition in wastewater irrigated soils. The data reported herein was used for the article, titled “Raw wastewater irrigation for urban agriculture in three African cities increases the abundance of transferable antibiotic resistance genes in soil, including those encoding Extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESBLs)” Bougnom et al. (2020) [1].