Abstract
Antibiotic resistance has become a global threat in which the anthropogenically influenced aquatic environment represents not only a reservoir for the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) among humans and animals but also an environment where resistance genes are introduced into natural microbial ecosystems. Wastewater is one of the sources of antibiotic resistance. The aim of this research was the evaluation of wastewater impact on the spread of antibiotic resistance in the water environment. In this study, qPCR was used to detect antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs)—blaCTX-M-15, blaCTX-M-32, ampC, blaTEM, sul1, tetM and mcr-1 and an integron detection primer (intl1). Detection of antibiotic resistant Escherichia coli was used as a complement to the observed qPCR results. Our results show that the process of wastewater treatment significantly reduces the abundances of ARGs and ARB. Nevertheless, treated wastewater affects the ARGs and ARB number in the receiving river.
Highlights
Antibiotics are routinely applied both in human and veterinary medicine for the treatment of infectious diseases [1,2,3,4,5]
Increasing exposure of environmental bacteria to antibiotics, antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) leads to the rapid development of their resistance and potentially increase in the abundance of resistance genes within the environmental resistance genes pool, aka “the resistome”, propagation of antibiotic resistance genes between bacteria [15,17,19,20]
Antibiotic Resistance Genes and Culturable Antibiotic Resistant Escherichia coli in Wastewater
Summary
Antibiotics are routinely applied both in human and veterinary medicine for the treatment of infectious diseases [1,2,3,4,5]. Worldwide intensive misuse of antibiotics caused their continuous release into the environment [6,7,8,9,10,11], and the increase of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) [12,13,14]. Large numbers of clinical ARB harbor antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) and genetic elements which can be further transmitted to and among environment bacteria [15,16,17]. The effect of antibiotics and ARGs and ARB that is released by humans into the environments is regarded as an important environmental problem and potential risk for human health [18,21,22] (Figure 1)
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