Integrating Nanotechnology With Bioremediation for Antimicrobial Resistance Mitigation: A One Health Framework

Abstract

ABSTRACT Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an escalating One Health challenge driven by the persistence of antibiotics, resistant microorganisms, and resistance genes across clinical, agricultural, and aquatic environments. Bioremediation offers microbial and enzymatic pathways for degrading antibiotic residues, but its effectiveness is often limited by slow kinetics, environmental heterogeneity, and system instability. Nanotechnology provides complementary capabilities, including enhanced antimicrobial delivery, photocatalytic degradation, enzyme stabilization, biofilm disruption, and damage to extracellular resistance genes, while also introducing concerns related to toxicity, ecological risk, and resistance selection. This review synthesizes primary experimental evidence across nanotechnology and bioremediation to evaluate their integration as an environmental AMR mitigation strategy. The analysis indicates that integrated systems can improve antibiotic removal, antimicrobial performance, and biofilm control, although direct reductions in resistance‐gene abundance or transfer have been demonstrated in only a subset of studies. The review further identifies key barriers to implementation, including limited field validation, inconsistent system characterization, and insufficient assessment of transformation products and ecological impacts. Overall, integrated nano‐bioremediation represents a promising pre‐field approach whose advancement will depend on environmentally informed design, standardized evaluation, and responsible deployment.