A Comprehensive Insight into Tetracycline Resistant Bacteria and Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Activated Sludge Using Next-Generation Sequencing

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Kailong Huang²  Junying Tang²  Xu-Xiang Zhang¹  Ke Xu² 

[1] State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, Environmental Health Research Center, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China;

关键词: antibiotic resistant bacteria;    antibiotic resistance genes;    sewage treatment plant;    tetracycline;    454 pyrosequencing;    metagenomic analysis;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms150610083

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

In order to comprehensively investigate tetracycline resistance in activated sludge of sewage treatment plants, 454 pyrosequencing and Illumina high-throughput sequencing were used to detect potential tetracycline resistant bacteria (TRB) and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in sludge cultured with different concentrations of tetracycline. Pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene revealed that tetracycline treatment greatly affected the bacterial community structure of the sludge. Nine genera consisting of Sulfuritalea, Armatimonas, Prosthecobacter, Hyphomicrobium, Azonexus, Longilinea, Paracoccus, Novosphingobium and Rhodobacter were identified as potential TRB in the sludge. Results of qPCR, molecular cloning and metagenomic analysis consistently indicated that tetracycline treatment could increase both the abundance and diversity of the tet genes, but decreased the occurrence and diversity of non-tetracycline ARG, especially sulfonamide resistance gene sul2. Cluster analysis showed that tetracycline treatment at subinhibitory concentrations (5 mg/L) was found to pose greater effects on the bacterial community composition, which may be responsible for the variations of the ARGs abundance. This study indicated that joint use of 454 pyrosequencing and Illumina high-throughput sequencing can be effectively used to explore ARB and ARGs in the environment, and future studies should include an in-depth investigation of the relationship between microbial community, ARGs and antibiotics in sewage treatment plant (STP) sludge.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.