Acetaminophen Levels Found in Recycled Wastewater Alter Soil Microbial Community Structure and Functional Diversity

Abstract

The practice of using recycled wastewater (RWW) has been successfully adopted to address the growing demand for clean water. However, chemicals of emerging concern (CECs) including pharmaceutical products remain in the RWW even after additional cleaning. When RWW is used to irrigate crops or landscapes, these chemicals can enter these and adjacent environments. Unfortunately, the overall composition and concentrations of CECs found in different RWW sources vary, and even the same source can vary over time. Therefore, we selected one compound that is found frequently and in high concentrations in many RWW sources, acetaminophen (APAP), to use for our study. Using greenhouse grown eggplants treated with APAP concentrations within the ranges found in RWW effluents, we investigated the short-term impacts of APAP on the soil bacterial population under agricultural settings. Using Illumina sequencing-based approaches, we showed that APAP has the potential to cause shifts in the microbial community most likely by positively selecting for bacteria that are capable of metabolizing the breakdown products of APAP such as glycosides and carboxylic acids. Community-level physiological profiles of carbon metabolism were evaluated using Biolog EcoPlate as a proxy for community functions. The Biolog plates indicated that the metabolism of amines, amino acids, carbohydrates, carboxylic acids, and polymers was significantly higher in the presence of APAP. Abundance of microorganisms of importance to plant health and productivity was altered by APAP. Our results indicate that the soil microbial community and functions could be altered by APAP at concentrations found in RWW. Our findings contribute to the knowledge base needed to guide policies regulating RWW reuse in agriculture and also highlight the need to further investigate the effects of CECs found in RWW on soil microbiomes.

Ketoprofen as an emerging contaminant: occurrence, ecotoxicity and (bio)removal

“…It is crucial to pay closer attention to taxonomic rearrangements in microbial communities, metabolic changes in microbial cells, pathogenicity spread, antibiotic resistance as well as changes in the function of environmentally significant microorganisms in ecosystems exposed to pharmaceuticals. This will ultimately deepen our knowledge of the ecological fate of pharmaceutical pollutants and shed light on the processes by which they undergo transformations ( Gomes et al, 2020 ; Crampon et al, 2021 ; McLain et al, 2022 ; Wang et al, 2022 ). In this regard, the studies of stress-tolerant microorganisms have attracted attention because they possess the potential to biodegrade numerous xenobiotics and pharmaceutical pollutants and contribute to current water treatment technologies ( AlKaabi et al, 2020 ; Pátek et al, 2021 ; Shylla et al, 2021 ; Bravo and Braissant, 2022 ; Ivshina et al, 2022 ).…”

Evaluating the effects of mefenoxam on taxonomic and functional dynamics of nontarget fungal communities during carrot cultivation

“…Push cores with a 1 cm diameter were used to sample soil from a 3 cm depth. Total DNA was extracted from the soil samples and the Illumina sequencing library was prepared as described in our previous work 32 . Briefly, total environmental DNA was extracted from 0.25 g of soil samples using the DNeasy Powersoil kit (Qiagen, Valencia, CA, USA) following the manufacturer’s instructions.…”

Rhodococcus strains as a good biotool for neutralizing pharmaceutical pollutants and obtaining therapeutically valuable products: Through the past into the future

“…Also, it is crucial to understand how pharmaceutical pollutants affect rhodococci and other microbes, which are a natural system of “primary response” to xenobiotic load in open ecosystems. For instance, the occurrence of pharmaceuticals in aquatic or soil ecosystems may lead to reduced biodiversity, changes in biomass composition, biochemical reactions, metabolic and enzymatic activity of a microbiological community, to the suppression of local (native) species and, finally, to the transformation of key ecological processes by synergistic and additive effects of other ecotoxicants and their metabolites ( Rosi-Marshall et al, 2013 ; Aguilar-Romero et al, 2020 ; Gomes et al, 2020 ; Crampon et al, 2021 ; McLain et al, 2022 ; Pashaei et al, 2022 ).…”