Effects of subinhibitory quinolone concentrations on functionality, microbial community composition, and abundance of antibiotic resistant bacteria and qnrS in activated sludge

Katarzyna Slipko*, Roberto B.M. Marano, Eddie Cytryn, Valentina Merkus, Markus Wogerbauer, Jorg Krampe, Edouard Jurkevitch, Norbert Kreuzinger

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are continuously exposed to sub-inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics that are thought to contribute to the spreading of antibiotic resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes, which are eventually released to downstream environments through effluents. In order to understand the effects of sub-inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics on sludge microbiome and resistome, we spiked a conventional activated sludge (CAS) model system with ciprofloxacin, a common fluoroquinolone antibiotic, from 0.0001 mg/L (about twice the typical ciprofloxacin concentration observed in municipal wastewater) up to 0.1 mg/L (one order of magnitude below the clinical MIC for Enterobacteriaceae) for 151 days. The abundance of ciprofloxacin resistant bacteria and qnrS, a plasmid-associated gene that confers resistance to quinolones, in activated sludge and in effluents of control and spiked CAS reactors, showed no measurable effect of the antibiotic amendment. This was also true for the bacterial community structure and for indicators of WW treatment such as N removal efficiency. Surprisingly, temporal fluctuations in both reactors could explain the observed internal variability of these antibiotic resistance determinants better than the hypothesized antibiotic-driven selective pressure. Overall, this work shows that the core sludge microbiome in CAS systems is resilient to sub-inhibitory concentrations of ciprofloxacin at a functional, structural, and antibiotic resistance levels.

Original languageAmerican English
Article number104783
JournalJournal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
Volume9
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 675530 . The content of this article reflects only the authors’ views and the Research Executive Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. The authors acknowledge TU Wien University Library for financial support through its Open Access Funding Program .

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors.

Keywords

  • Antibiotic-resistance
  • Ciprofloxacin
  • Conventional activated sludge
  • Quinolone-Resistance
  • Wastewater

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