Extended chloramination significantly enriched intracellular antibiotic resistance genes in drinking water treatment plants

Li, Haibei; Yu, Han‐Qing; Liang, Yongbing; Zhang, Xudong; Yang, Dong; Wang, Lin; Shi, Danyang; Chen, Tianjiao; Zhou, Shuqing; Yin, Jing; Yang, Zhongwei; Lǐ, Jùnwén; Jin, Min

doi:10.1016/j.watres.2023.119689

Cited by 14 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Among various wastewater treatment processes, disinfection processes like UV, ozone, and chlorination are designed to control microbiological contaminants, especially to inactivate bacteria and harmful genes . However, some researchers found that chlorine disinfection could increase the relative abundance of ARGs, while ozone and UV disinfection could release free ARGs to the environment as a result of bacteria apoptosis . More importantly, the residual parts of microorganisms that maintain the capacity of growth or even virulence after disinfection processes have attracted extensive attention, and these bacteria have been defined as disinfection residual bacteria (DRB) .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deciphering Multidrug-Resistant Plasmids in Disinfection Residual Bacteria from a Wastewater Treatment Plant

Lin,

Zhou,

Shuai

et al. 2024

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Current disinfection processes pose an emerging environmental risk due to the ineffective removal of antibioticresistant bacteria, especially disinfection residual bacteria (DRB) carrying multidrug-resistant plasmids (MRPs). However, the characteristics of DRB-carried MRPs are poorly understood. In this study, qPCR analysis reveals that the total absolute abundance of four plasmids in postdisinfection effluent decreases by 1.15 log units, while their relative abundance increases by 0.11 copies/cell compared to investigated wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) influent. We obtain three distinctive DRB-carried MRPs (pWWTP-01−03) from postdisinfection effluent, each carrying 9−11 antibiotic-resistant genes (ARGs). pWWTP-01 contains all 11 ARGs within an ∼25 Kbp chimeric genomic island showing strong patterns of recombination with MRPs from foodborne outbreaks and hospitals. Antibiotic-, disinfectant-, and heavy-metal-resistant genes on the same plasmid underscore the potential roles of disinfectants and heavy metals in the coselection of ARGs. Additionally, pWWTP-02 harbors an adhesin-type virulence operon, implying risks of both antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity upon entering environments. Furthermore, some MRPs from DRB are capable of transferring and could confer selective advantages to recipients under environmentally relevant antibiotic pressure. Overall, this study advances our understanding of DRB-carried MRPs and highlights the imminent need to monitor and control wastewater MRPs for environmental security.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%