Fate of antibiotic resistant E. coli and antibiotic resistance genes during full scale conventional and advanced anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge.

ABSTRACT: Antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and their genes (ARGs) have become recognised as significant emerging environmental pollutants. ARB and ARGs in sewage sludge can be transmitted back to humans via the food chain when sludge is recycled to agricultural land, making sludge treatment key to control the release of ARB and ARGs to the environment. This study investigated the fate of antibiotic resistant Escherichia coli and a large set of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) during full scale anaerobic digestion (AD) of sewage sludge at two U.K. wastewater treatment plants and evaluated the impact of thermal hydrolysis (TH) pre-treatment on their abundance and diversity. Absolute abundance of 13 ARGs and the Class I integron gene intI1 was calculated using single gene quantitative (q) PCR. Hig

SUBMITTER: Redhead S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7707479 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature