From farm to gut: ecological filtering and risk interpretation of antimicrobial resistance in dairy products.

چکیده اصلی

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is increasingly recognized as a food safety and public health challenge that extends beyond clinical settings to animal production, food processing, and host-associated microbial ecosystems. Dairy products represent an important interface linking farm environments, processing systems, and the human gastrointestinal tract. However, current evidence on AMR in dairy products remains fragmented. Most studies have focused on detecting antibiotic-resistant bacteria, antimicrobial resistance genes, and mobile genetic elements, whereas less attention has been given to whether these determinants remain viable or functionally relevant after processing and gastrointestinal exposure. This review examines AMR determinants in dairy products from a farm-to-gut perspective. We summarize major upstream reservoirs and entry routes of resistance determinants along the dairy chain and evaluate their distribution across raw milk and processed dairy products. A central argument of this review is that dairy processing should be interpreted as an ecological filter rather than a simple decontamination step, because it can reduce viable microorganisms while reshaping the persistence, localization, and transfer potential of resistance-related signals. We further discuss the ecological barriers that dairy-associated AMR determinants must overcome before becoming biologically meaningful host risks, including gastrointestinal survival, microbial competition, horizontal gene transfer, colonization, persistence, and functional expression. Detection alone should not be equated with public health risk. Instead, AMR assessment in dairy systems should move beyond descriptive surveillance toward multilayered interpretation of viability, mobility, persistence, functional activity, and host relevance. This risk-oriented framework provides a basis for distinguishing molecular presence from functional transmission relevance, identifying critical control points across the dairy chain, supporting AMR management in dairy products.

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