Disentangling abiotic and biotic effects of treated wastewater on stream biofilm resistomes enables the discovery of a new planctomycete beta-lactamase.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Environmental reservoirs of antibiotic resistance pose a threat to human and animal health. Aquatic biofilms impacted by wastewater effluent (WW) are known environmental reservoirs for antibiotic resistance; however, the relative importance of biotic factors and abiotic factors from WW on the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) within aquatic biofilms remains unclear. Additionally, experimental evidence is limited within complex aquatic microbial communities as to whether genes bearing low sequence similarity to validated reference ARGs are functional as ARGs.

Results

To disentangle the effects of abiotic and biotic factors on ARG abundances, natural biofilms were previously grown in flume systems with different proportions of stream water and either u

SUBMITTER: Attrah M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11380404 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature