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

• DOI: 10.20944/preprints202103.0140.v1
• Publication Date: 2021-03-04T07:41:33Z
• Authors: Alicia Sorgen; James Johnson; Kevin Lambirth; Sandra Clinton; Molly Redmond; Anthony Fodor; Cynthia Gibas
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 0303 health sciences; antibiotic resistance; RM1-950; atmospheric_science; Article; 6. Clean water; 3. Good health; 12. Responsible consumption; culturability; wastewater treatment; 03 medical and health sciences; 11. Sustainability; Therapeutics. Pharmacology

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