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Changes in the composition of bacterial communities and pathogen levels during wastewater treatment

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Abstract

Wastewater treatment plants have been described as a potential source of spreading pathogens to the receiving water. However, few studies are reporting the presence and concentration changes of pathogens in these matrices. High-throughput sequencing provides new insights into understanding the changes of bacterial communities throughout wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). In this study, the changes in microbial community composition and the levels of representative pathogens of effluents during the wastewater treatment process in two municipal WWTPs (A and B) were analyzed using Illumina NovaSeq sequencing and qPCR. Proteobacteria was the most abundant phylum in all samples, accounting for 45.0–75.2% of the bacterial community, followed by Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, and Nitrospirae. A slight difference was observed between the bacterial community compositions of WWTPs A and B. However, a significant difference in the community compositions of effluent samples at different treatment stages was observed. Nutrients had a more substantial impact on bacterial community composition than physicochemical factors. Most human-associated Bacteroides and Mycobacterium were eliminated during the wastewater treatment process in both WWTPs. The bacterial community richness in WWTP A was significantly higher than that in WWTP B. The results of this study will provide insights into the potential problems that exist in WWTPs. In turn, these insights can enable the efficient and stable operation of WWTPs and help prevent the spread of pathogens.

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Data availability

The raw sequence data was submitted to the NCBI SAR database (Accession: PRJNA796627). Other data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2020YFD0901003), the Shenzhen Sustainable Development Science and Technology Project (KCXFZ20201221173404012), the Scientific Research Startup Fund for Shenzhen High-Caliber Personnel of SZPT (No. 6022310040 K), the Post-doctoral Later-stage Foundation Project of Shenzhen Polytechnic (6021271015K1), and Urban smart water pollution prevention and control technology development center, Department of education of Guangdong Province (2019GGCZX007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Marine Bioresource & Eco-Environmental Sciences, College of Life Sciences and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518071, China

    Shuangfei Li, Shilin Wang, Madiha Zaynab, Keju Wang & Liping Zhong

  2. Environment, Education and Research (CHEER), Consortium On Health, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong, China

    Ming Hung Wong

  3. School of Materials and Environmental Engineering, Shenzhen Polytechnic, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Liao Ouyang

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  1. Shuangfei Li
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  2. Shilin Wang
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  4. Madiha Zaynab
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  5. Keju Wang
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  6. Liping Zhong
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  7. Liao Ouyang
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Contributions

SL: conceptualization, project administration, funding acquisition, and supervision. SW: investigation, methodology, and writing with review and editing. MHW: writing with review and editing. MZ: writing with review and editing. KW: investigation and methodology. LZ: investigation and Methodology. LO: conceptualization, formal analysis, and writing of the original draft.

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Correspondence to Liao Ouyang.

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Li, S., Wang, S., Wong, M.H. et al. Changes in the composition of bacterial communities and pathogen levels during wastewater treatment. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 1232–1243 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21947-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21947-8

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