Occurrence of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes in a sewage treatment plant and its effluent-receiving river

Removal of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes from domestic sewage by constructed wetlands: Effect of flow configuration and plant species

“…It is noteworthy that the removal efficiencies of antibiotics and ARGs by different mesocosm-scale CWs in the present study were even better than conventional WWTPs (Li and Zhang, 2010;Jia et al, 2012;Chen and Zhang, 2013;Zhou et al, 2013;Xu et al, 2015). The present and previous studies implied that sorption and biological processes could be the two main mechanisms for ARGs elimination.…”

Removal of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes from domestic sewage by constructed wetlands: Optimization of wetland substrates and hydraulic loading

“…The results from the present study clearly demonstrated that the detected seven antibiotics and all 18 target genes could be reduced by the mesocosm-scale CWs at relatively similar or even higher rates than conventional wastewater treatment plants (Lindberg et al, 2005;Li and Zhang, 2010;Gao et al, 2012;Jia et al, 2012;Chen et al, 2014;Zhou et al, 2013;Xu et al, 2015). In a word, optimized horizontal subsurface flow CWs may be a good choice applied as an effective treatment technology for removing antibiotics and ARGs in domestic sewage, and much more research is needed to make sure about the effect in practical application.…”

Impacts of reclaimed water irrigation on soil antibiotic resistome in urban parks of Victoria, Australia

“…S2). Therefore, RWI could impact the soil resistome through many ways such as increasing number and abundance of ARGs and changing antibiotic resistance profiles (Wang et al, 2014a;Xu et al, 2015). The different shifts in ARGs distribution profiles in the RWI parks might be caused by a complex set of extrinsic and intrinsic factors, such as various reclaimed water origins, irrigation histories and volumes, abundance of the native ARGs, adaptation capability of introduced RWI-derived ARB to new surroundings and their competition with native soil microbial communities (Gatica and Cytryn, 2013;Wang et al, 2014a).…”

“…Therefore, ARGs have been recognized as a new type of emerging environmental contaminant (Pruden et al, 2006). In contrast to chemical contaminants, bacterial ARGs might be more persistent in the environment, as ARGs can be not only multiplied in their hosts but also transferred to other microbial populations including human and animal commensals and pathogens through horizontal gene transfer (HGT) mechanisms via mobile genetic elements (MGEs), such as integrons, transposons, and plasmids (Gogarten and Townsend, 2005;Yu et al, 2012). It is well known that integron and transposon are responsible for the acquisition of ARGs and have frequently been found in antibioticresistant strains Scott, 2002).…”

“…Given the increasingly exacerbated water scarcity owing to urbanization, population growth and less available freshwater, it is anticipated that RWI will likely be more widely applied in the future (Wang et al, 2014a). However, a large amount of antibiotics, ARB and ARGs can still persist in the reclaimed water after traditional wastewater treatments which are mainly designed to remove organic matter, inorganic nitrogen and phosphorous, and suspended solids, but not for the removal of antibiotics and ARGs (Berendonk et al, 2015;Rodriguez-Mozaz et al, 2015;Xu et al, 2015). The presence of abundant and diverse ARGs of clinical relevance was frequently reported in the effluents of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), even after rigorous tertiary disinfection and mixed-media filtration (LaPara et al, 2011;Gatica and Cytryn, 2013).…”