Metagenomics-Guided Assessment of Water Quality and Predicting Pathogenic Load

Abstract

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) are becoming more prevalent in the environment and are efficiently disseminating through contaminated wastewater resulting in resistome cycling. This chapter compares the bacterial profile of hospital effluents collected from rural, urban, and delta regions of West Bengal, India. Comparative metagenomics analysis identified pathogenic bacterial genera like pseudomonas, escherichia, staphylococcus, lactobacillus, prevotella, acinetobacter across the samples. Delta sample showed highest abundance of pseudomonas whereas rural sample had lower titre of all the common bacterial genera. Urban sample reflected more diversity of different genera in terms of abundance. Pathogenic load prediction revealed significant occurrence of diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, liver cirrhosis, ulcerative colitis in the disease network. This chapter proposes a monitoring programme for assessing wastewater health using a combination of culture independent and culture-dependent molecular techniques in order to prevent the spread of pollutants in tropical environments.