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Integrated metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses of ultraviolet disinfection effects on antibiotic resistance genes and bacterial communities during wastewater treatment

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Abstract

Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection is now widely implemented in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) worldwide, but its effect on antibiotic resistome of the surviving bacteria remains unclear. In this study, we employed high-throughput sequencing-based metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approaches to comprehensively elucidate the effects of UV disinfection on the shifts of bacterial community and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) on both DNA and mRNA levels in one WWTP. Metagenomic analyses revealed an insignificant change in the bacterial community after UV disinfection, while metatranscriptomic analyses showed that UV disinfection significantly changed the abundance of 13.79% of phyla and 10.32% of genera. In total, 38 ARG-like open reading frames (ORFs) and 327 ARG-like transcripts were identified in the DNA and RNA samples, respectively. The relative abundances of the total ARGs, each ARG type, and each ARG subtype also varied after UV disinfection. Additionally, UV disinfection significantly reduced the expression of total ARGs from 49.40 transcripts per kilobase of exon model per million mapped reads (TPM) to 47.62 TPM, and significantly changed the expression of 10.75% of ARG subtypes in wastewater (p < 0.05). Notably, the significant increase in the expression and obvious increase in the relative abundance of macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B (MLSB) resistance genes revealed that UV disinfection increases the potential health risk of MLSB resistance genes in wastewater. Moreover, potential host analyses of ARGs revealed the different preferences of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) to ARGs. This study may shed new light on the underlying mechanism of the UV disinfection effect on antibiotic resistance.

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Abbreviations

ARGs:

Antibiotic resistance genes

ARB:

Antibiotic resistant bacteria

WWTPs:

Wastewater treatment plants

UV:

Ultraviolet

VBNC:

Viable but nonculturable

RIN:

RNA integrity number

PE:

Paired-end

ORFs:

Open reading frames

TPM:

Transcripts per kilobase of exon model per million mapped reads

TMM:

Trimmed mean of M-values

ARDB:

Antibiotic Resistance Genes Database

MLSB:

Macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the Nanjing University Excellent Research Program (ZYJH005), National Natural Science Foundation of China (51908274), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M640475).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Shuyu Jia, Tong Li

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, Environmental Health Research Center, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Shuyu Jia, Tong Li & Xu-Xiang Zhang

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  1. Shuyu Jia
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  2. Tong Li
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Jia, S., Li, T. & Zhang, XX. Integrated metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses of ultraviolet disinfection effects on antibiotic resistance genes and bacterial communities during wastewater treatment. Ecotoxicology 30, 1610–1619 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-020-02313-1

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