Effect of Urban Wastewater Discharge on the Abundance of Antibiotic Resistance Genes and Antibiotic-Resistant Escherichia coli in Two Italian Rivers.

ABSTRACT: Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are microbial factories aimed to reduce the amount of nutrients and pathogenic microorganisms in the treated wastewater before its discharge into the environment. We studied the impact of urban WWTP effluents on the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli (AR-E. coli) in the last stretch of two rivers (Arrone and Tiber) in Central Italy that differ in size and flow volume. Water samples were collected in three seasons upstream and downstream of the WWTP, at the WWTP outlet, and at sea sites near the river mouth, and analyzed for the abundance of ARGs by qPCR and AR-E. coli using cultivation followed by disk diffusion assays. For all studied genes (16S rRNA, intI1, sul1, ermB, blaTEM, tetW and qnrS), absol

SUBMITTER: Pantanella F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7557954 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature