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Occurrence of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes and their correlations in river-type drinking water source, China

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Abstract

The occurrence and distribution of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in natural water has attracted worldwide attention. Antibiotic and ARG pollution in the surface water of drinking water sources might directly/indirectly affect human health. In this study, the distribution of 38 antibiotics, 10 ARGs, 2 integrons, and 16S r DNA in river-type water sources in a large city of China were monitored in winter, which was a period with high level of antibiotic pollution. The results showed that 20 antibiotics were detected with different detection frequencies. The antibiotic pollution in December 2019 was relatively high, with the total concentrations of antibiotics ranging from 281.95 to 472.42 ng/L, followed by that in January 2020 (191.70–337.29 ng/L) and November 2019 (161.25–309.72 ng/L). Sulfacetamide was dominant in November 2019 (23.52–219.00 ng/L) and in January 2020 (113.18–209 ng/L), while norfloxacin in December 2019 (146.72–290.20 ng/L). All the target antibiotics posed low or medium risk for aquatic organisms, and posed low health risk for mankind. Sul1 and erm36 were the predominant ARGs, and intI1 was the predominant integron in drinking water sources. Only tetA showed positive correlations with its corresponding antibiotic (tetracycline). The rest of ARGs showed no correlations with antibiotics or positive / negative correlations with their non-corresponding antibiotics. Overall, the antibiotics and ARG pollution in these water sources was relatively low. These findings provided some reference data for the distribution of antibiotics and ARGs in river-type drinking water sources of large cities in China.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFD1100303, 2016YFD0800601), Ecological environment research project of Jiangsu Province (JSZC-G2020-416), and Basal Research Fund of Central Public-interest Scientific Institution of Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Ecology and Environment (No.2019GYZX190203).

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  1. Yanhua Liu and Yu Chen contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Nanjing, 210042, China

    Yanhua Liu, Yu Chen, Weitao Shen & Shenghu Zhang

  2. School of Engineering, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China

    Yanhua Liu, Mengjuan Feng & Jianqiu Chen

  3. College of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Guizhou University, Guiyang, 550025, China

    Yu Chen

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Contributions

Yanhua Liu and Yu Chen: carried out experiments and analyzed experimental results;

Mengjuan Feng: carried out experiments;

Jianqiu Chen: developed the methodology;

Weitao Shen: developed the methodology;

Shenghu Zhang: managed and coordinated responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.

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Correspondence to Shenghu Zhang.

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Highlights

1. Antibiotics together with ARGs were monitored in water sources of Nanjing, China.

2. All antibiotics posed low or medium risk on aquatic organisms and human health.

3. ARGs abundance was relatively low, and Sul1 and erm36 were the dominant ARGs.

4. Most ARGs showed no correlations with their corresponding antibiotics except tetA.

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Liu, Y., Chen, Y., Feng, M. et al. Occurrence of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes and their correlations in river-type drinking water source, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 42339–42352 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13637-8

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