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. 2013 Oct 25;8(10):e78906.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0078906. eCollection 2013.

Prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes and bacterial community composition in a river influenced by a wastewater treatment plant

Elisabet Marti  1 , Juan Jofre, Jose Luis Balcazar
Affiliations

Prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes and bacterial community composition in a river influenced by a wastewater treatment plant

Elisabet Marti et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Antibiotic resistance represents a global health problem, requiring better understanding of the ecology of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), their selection and their spread in the environment. Antibiotics are constantly released to the environment through wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents. We investigated, therefore, the effect of these discharges on the prevalence of ARGs and bacterial community composition in biofilm and sediment samples of a receiving river. We used culture-independent approaches such as quantitative PCR to determine the prevalence of eleven ARGs and 16S rRNA gene-based pyrosequencing to examine the composition of bacterial communities. Concentration of antibiotics in WWTP influent and effluent were also determined. ARGs such as qnrS, bla TEM, bla CTX-M, bla SHV, erm(B), sul(I), sul(II), tet(O) and tet(W) were detected in all biofilm and sediment samples analyzed. Moreover, we observed a significant increase in the relative abundance of ARGs in biofilm samples collected downstream of the WWTP discharge. We also found significant differences with respect to community structure and composition between upstream and downstream samples. Therefore, our results indicate that WWTP discharges may contribute to the spread of ARGs into the environment and may also impact on the bacterial communities of the receiving river.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: Dr. Balcázar serves as an academic editor for PLOS ONE. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. The other authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Relative concentration of ARGs in biofilm and sediment samples.
Within the box plot chart, the crosspieces of each box plot represent (from top to bottom) maximum, upper-quartile, median (black bar), lower-quartile, and minimum values. An asterisk (*) denotes a statistically significant difference between upstream and downstream sites (P<0.05).
Figure 2
Figure 2. The dendrograms represent the similarity among the samples based on the Bray-Curtis coefficient.
Scale bars indicate the similarity obtained from calculated matrices.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Relative abundance of major bacterial lineages (phyla; and classes for Proteobacteria) found in the biofilm and sediment samples.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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