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Growth Behavior of E. coli, Enterococcus and Staphylococcus Species in the Presence and Absence of Sub-inhibitory Antibiotic Concentrations: Consequences for Interpretation of Culture-Based Data

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

Culture-based approaches are used to monitor, e.g., drinking water or bathing water quality and to investigate species diversity and antibiotic resistance levels in environmental samples. For health risk assessment, it is important to know whether the growing cultures display the actual abundance of, e.g., clinically relevant antibiotic resistance phenotypes such as vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium/Enterococcus faecalis (VRE) or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. In addition, it is important to know whether sub-inhibitory antibiotic concentrations, which are present in surface waters, favor the growth of antibiotic-resistant strains. Therefore, clinically relevant bacteria were isolated from different water sources and the growth behavior of 58 Escherichia coli, 71 Enterococcus, and 120 Staphylococcus isolates, belonging to different species and revealing different antibiotic resistance patterns, was studied with respect to “environmental” antibiotic concentrations. The finding that VRE could only be detected after specific enrichment can be explained by their slow growth compared to non-resistant strains. Interpreting their absence in standardized culture-based methods as nonexistent might be a fallacy. Sub-inhibitory antibiotic concentrations that were detected in sewage and receiving river water did not specifically promote antibiotic-resistant strains. Generally, those antibiotics that influenced cell metabolism directly led to slightly reduced growth rates and less than maximal optical densities after 48 h of incubation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Dr. A. Becker and her team at Städtisches Klinikum Karlsruhe for providing clinical strains. We thank Dr. S. Schmidt for providing E. coli and Enterococcus strains. Furthermore, we thank the team at the University of Tübingen under the guidance of Prof. Dr. R. Triebskorn and the SchussenAktivplus project team of ISF at LUBW in Langenargen for organizing sampling campaigns and for supplying sewage and river water samples. We thank Prof. Dr. J. Winter, KIT, for helpful discussions during experimentation and preparation of the manuscript.

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  1. Faculty of Technology, Microbiology – Biotechnology, University of Applied Science Emden/Leer, 4 Constantiaplatz, 26723, Emden, Germany

    Stefanie Heß & Claudia Gallert

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  1. Stefanie Heß
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  2. Claudia Gallert
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Correspondence to Stefanie Heß.

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Funding

SchussenAktivplus was funded by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research BMBF (02WRS1281M) and co-funded by the Ministry of Environment Baden-Württemberg. In addition, Jedele & Partner GmbH, Ökonsult GbR, the City of Ravensburg, the AZV Mariatal, and the AV Unteres Schussental contributed financially to this research project.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Heß, S., Gallert, C. Growth Behavior of E. coli, Enterococcus and Staphylococcus Species in the Presence and Absence of Sub-inhibitory Antibiotic Concentrations: Consequences for Interpretation of Culture-Based Data. Microb Ecol 72, 898–908 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-016-0788-7

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