Biofilm removal in hospital sink drains drives unintended surges in antibiotic resistance.

ABSTRACT: The prevalence and proliferation of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria is considered one of the critical issues of our time. Wastewater is a habitat for complex microbial communities where bacteria share antimicrobial-resistance genes through horizontal gene transfer. Hospital wastewater plumbing systems are an ideal reservoir for environmental and pathogenic bacteria to interface and exchange antimicrobial-resistance genes. Replacement of contaminated plumbing may be the most intuitive and widely deployed response to the detection and colonization of highly-resistant potentially pathogenic bacteria in hospital sink drains. In this study, we analyzed sink-drain biofilms from six intensive-care patient rooms using shotgun metagenomic sequencing and microbial culture. We show an evident shift

SUBMITTER: Kotay SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12847690 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature