Chlorine disinfection increases both intracellular and extracellular antibiotic resistance genes in a full-scale wastewater treatment plant

WATER RESEARCH

卷:136

Article

Liu, Shan-Shan¹  Qu, Hong-Mei²  Yang, Dong¹  Hu, Hui¹  Liu, Wei-Li¹  Qiu, Zhi-Gang¹  Hou, Ai-Ming¹  Guo, Jianhua³  Li, Jun-Wen¹  Shen, Zhi-Qiang¹  Jin, Min¹ 

[1] Tianjin Inst Environm & Operat Med, Dept Environm & Hlth, Key Lab Risk Assessment & Control Environm & Food, Tianjin 300050, Peoples R China

[2] Tianjin Univ, Coll Chem Engn & Technol, Tianjin 300072, Peoples R China

[3] Univ Queensland, AWMC, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia

关键词: Antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB);    Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs);    Extracellular ARGs (eARGs);    Intracellular ARGs (iARGs);    Chlorination;    Disinfection;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.watres.2018.02.036

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

The emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance has posed a major threat to both human health and environmental ecosystem. Although the disinfection has been proved to be efficient to control the occurrence of pathogens, little effort is dedicated to revealing potential impacts of disinfection on transmission of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), particularly for free-living ARGs in final disinfected effluent of urban wastewater treatment plants (UWWTP). Here, we investigated the effects of chlorine disinfection on the occurrence and concentration of both extracellular ARGs (eARGs) and intracellular ARGs (iARGs) in a full-scale UWWTP over a year. We reported that the concentrations of both eARGs and iARGs would be increased by the disinfection with chlorine dioxide (ClO2). Specifically, chlorination preferentially increased the abundances of eARGs against macrolide (ermB), tetracycline (tetA, tetB and tetC), sulfonamide (sul1, sul2 and sul3), beta-lactam (ampC), aminoglycosides (aph(2')-Id), rifampicin (katG) and vancomycin (vanA) up to 3.8 folds. Similarly, the abundances of iARGs were also increased up to 7.8 folds after chlorination. In terms of correlation analyses, the abundance of Escherichia coli before chlorination showed a strong positive correlation with the total eARG concentration, while lower temperature and higher ammonium concentration were assumed to be associated with the concentration of iARGs. This study suggests the chlorine disinfection could increase the abundances of both iARGs and eARGs, thereby posing risk of the dissemination of antibiotic resistance in environments. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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