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Fate and removal of various antibiotic resistance genes in typical pharmaceutical wastewater treatment systems

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Abstract

The high levels of antibiotic residues in pharmaceutical wastewater treatment plants (PWWTPs) make these plants the hotspots for the proliferation of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). This study investigated the fate and removal of 11 ARG subtypes for sulfonamide, tetracycline, β-lactam, and macrolide resistance in each processing stage of two full-scale PWWTPs in northern China. The levels of typical ARG subtypes in the final effluents ranged from (2.56 ± 0.13) × 101 to (2.36 ± 0.11) × 107 copies/ml. The absolute abundance of ARGs in effluents accounted for only 0.03–78.1 % of influents of the two PWWTPs, while the majority of the ARGs were transported to the dewatered sludge with concentrations from (2.65 ± 0.43) × 105 to (4.27 ± 0.03) × 1010 copies/g dry weight (dw). The total loads of ARGs discharged through dewatered sludge plus effluent was 1.01–14.09-fold higher than that in the raw influents, suggesting the proliferation of ARGs occurred in the wastewater treatment. The proliferation of ARGs mainly occurs in biological treatment process, such as aeration tank, anoxic tank, sequencing batch reactor (SBR), and bio-contact oxidation, facilitates the proliferation of various ARGs, implying significant replication of certain ARG subtypes may be attributable to microbial growth. Chemical oxidation seems promising to remove ARGs, with removal efficiency ranged from 29.3 to 85.7 %, while the partial correlation analysis showed significant correlations between antibiotic concentration and ARG removal. Thus, the high antibiotic residues within the PWWTPs may have an influence on the proliferation, fate, and removal of the associated ARG subtypes.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the China National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists (grant 41525013) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 21277075 and 31470440).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

      Wenchao Zhai & Daqing Mao

    2. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

      Fengxia Yang & Yi Luo

    3. Shandong Provincial Solid Waste and Hazardous Chemical Pollution Prevention and Control Center, Jinan, 250117, China

      Wenchao Zhai

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    1. Wenchao Zhai
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    2. Fengxia Yang
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    3. Daqing Mao
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    Correspondence to Daqing Mao or Yi Luo.

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    Responsible editor: Gerald Thouand

    Wenchao Zhai and Fengxia Yang contributed equally to this work.

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    ESM 1

    Detailed information on detection of antibiotics, PCR assays operation, primer sequences of 16S rRNA and ARGs, primary date of gene concentrations in the effluent of each stage of PWWTPs, and the significant correlation between 16S rRNA and ARGs. (DOCX 134 kb)

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    Zhai, W., Yang, F., Mao, D. et al. Fate and removal of various antibiotic resistance genes in typical pharmaceutical wastewater treatment systems. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 12030–12038 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-6350-9

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-6350-9

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