Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Bengtsson-Palme, Johan
• Milakovic, Milena
• Švecová, Helena
• Ganjto, Marin
• Jonsson, Viktor
• Grabic, Roman
• Udikovic-Kolic, Nikolina

Titel

Industrial wastewater treatment plant enriches antibiotic resistance genes and alters the structure of microbial communities

Ist Teil von

• Water research (Oxford), 2019-10, Vol.162, p.437-445

Ort / Verlag

England: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Antibiotic resistance is an emerging global health crisis, driven largely by overuse and misuse of antibiotics. However, there are examples in which the production of these antimicrobial agents has polluted the environment with active antibiotic residues, selecting for antibiotic resistant bacteria and the genes they carry. In this work, we have used shotgun metagenomics to investigate the taxonomic structure and resistance gene composition of sludge communities in a treatment plant in Croatia receiving wastewater from production of the macrolide antibiotic azithromycin. We found that the total abundance of antibiotic resistance genes was three times higher in sludge from the treatment plant receiving wastewater from pharmaceutical production than in municipal sludge from a sewage treatment plant in Zagreb. Surprisingly, macrolide resistance genes did not have higher abundances in the industrial sludge, but genes associated with mobile genetic elements such as integrons had. We conclude that at high concentrations of antibiotics, selection may favor taxonomic shifts towards intrinsically resistant species or strains harboring chromosomal resistance mutations rather than acquisition of mobile resistance determinants. Our results underscore the need for regulatory action also within Europe to avoid release of antibiotics into the environment. [Display omitted] •Antibiotic resistance was enriched in a macrolide production WWTP.•No systematic enrichment was detected for macrolide resistance genes.•Mobile genetic elements were enriched along with resistance genes.•High macrolide levels seem to favor taxonomic shifts towards more resistance.•Regulatory actions against antibiotic releases into the environment are needed.