Characterization of Environmental and Cultivable Antibiotic-Resistant Microbial Communities Associated with Wastewater Treatment

Antibiotics

Kevin Lambirth¹  Cynthia Gibas¹  James Johnson¹  Anthony Fodor¹  Alicia Sorgen²  Molly Redmond²  SandraM. Clinton³ 

[1] Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA;Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA;Department of Geography & Earth Sciences, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA;

关键词: culturability;    antibiotic resistance;    wastewater treatment;   

DOI  :  10.3390/antibiotics10040352

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a growing global concern, threatening human and environmental health, particularly among urban populations. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are thought to be “hotspots” for antibiotic resistance dissemination. The conditions of WWTPs, in conjunction with the persistence of commonly used antibiotics, may favor the selection and transfer of resistance genes among bacterial populations. WWTPs provide an important ecological niche to examine the spread of antibiotic resistance. We used heterotrophic plate count methods to identify phenotypically resistant cultivable portions of these bacterial communities and characterized the composition of the culturable subset of these populations. Resistant taxa were more abundant in raw sewage and wastewater before the biological aeration treatment stage. While some antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) were detectable downstream of treated wastewater release, these organisms are not enriched relative to effluent-free upstream water, indicating efficient removal during treatment. Combined culture-dependent and -independent analyses revealed a stark difference in community composition between culturable fractions and the environmental source material, irrespective of culturing conditions. Higher proportions of the environmental populations were recovered than predicted by the widely accepted 1% culturability paradigm. These results represent baseline abundance and compositional data for ARB communities for reference in future studies addressing the dissemination of antibiotic resistance associated with urban wastewater treatment ecosystems.

【 授权许可】

Unknown