Abstract
Public concerns are increasing regarding the prevalence and transmission of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), especially ARG persistence and dissemination in activated sludge (AS). However, the temporal dynamics of ARGs in the AS of WWTPs over a long period of time and their transfer potential after the treatment process upgrade (e.g., total nitrogen reduction from 20 to 15 mg/L in effluent) remain poorly explored. Here, metagenomic sequencing was performed to quantify the ARGs in AS samples from two WWTPs with different treatment processes over a 2-year period. A total of 368 and 426 ARG subtypes affiliated with 20 ARG types were identified separately in the two WWTPs and the similar core ARGs were shared by all 54 samples. There were significant differences in ARG composition in different treatment processes, yet the abundance and diversity of ARGs in the AS samples demonstrated no distinct seasonal patterns. Notably, after the treatment process upgrade, the relative abundance of sulfonamide, beta-lactam, and aminoglycoside resistance genes was reduced by more than 10%, and the transfer potential of ARGs in bacterial pathogens decreased greatly, which suggested that an upgrade could limit the prevalence and transmission of ARGs. Variation partitioning analysis showed that metal resistance genes rather than bacterial community represented the significantly influential factor in shaping ARGs, and some key genera correlated with ARGs were identified through network analysis. These results will deepen our understanding of the dynamic changes in ARG profiles in AS systems and guide wastewater treatment plant upgrades.
Key points
• The potential transfer of ARGs decreased after the treatment process upgrade
• Metal resistance genes were the most influential factor in shaping ARG composition
• Co-occurrence networks displayed potential hosts of beta-lactam resistance genes
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Data availability
The raw sequence data of this study have been deposited at the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) under the BioProject ID PRJNA798539.
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The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41907214), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2022A1515011961), the Stable Support Program of Colleges and Universities in Shenzhen (20200813153536001), and the Natural Science Foundation of Shenzhen University (860–000002110245).
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LT: conceived of study, wrote the paper, performed research, analyzed data, contributed new methods or models; QL: performed research, analyzed data; XC: performed research, analyzed data; YW: performed research; YW: analyzed data; YM: designed study, wrote the paper, funding acquisition.
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Tian, L., Li, Q., Cai, X. et al. Dynamic distribution and potential transmission of antibiotic resistance genes in activated sludge. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 106, 6785–6797 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-022-12162-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-022-12162-z