Comparison of Culture- and Quantitative PCR-Based Indicators of Antibiotic Resistance in Wastewater, Recycled Water, and Tap Water

Jaqueline Rocha, Telma Fernandes, Maria V. Riquelme, Ni Zhu, Amy Pruden and Célia M. Manaia
Additional contact information
Jaqueline Rocha: CBQF—Centro de Biotecnologia e Química Fina—Laboratório Associado, Escola Superior de Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Rua de Diogo Botelho 1327, 4169-005 Porto, Portugal
Telma Fernandes: CBQF—Centro de Biotecnologia e Química Fina—Laboratório Associado, Escola Superior de Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Rua de Diogo Botelho 1327, 4169-005 Porto, Portugal
Maria V. Riquelme: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
Ni Zhu: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
Amy Pruden: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
Célia M. Manaia: CBQF—Centro de Biotecnologia e Química Fina—Laboratório Associado, Escola Superior de Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Rua de Diogo Botelho 1327, 4169-005 Porto, Portugal

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 21, 1-13

Abstract: Standardized methods are needed to support monitoring of antibiotic resistance in environmental samples. Culture-based methods target species of human-health relevance, while the direct quantification of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) measures the antibiotic resistance potential in the microbial community. This study compared measurements of tetracycline-, sulphonamide-, and cefotaxime-resistant presumptive total and fecal coliforms and presumptive enterococci versus a suite of ARGs quantified by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) across waste-, recycled-, tap-, and freshwater. Cross-laboratory comparison of results involved measurements on samples collected and analysed in the US and Portugal. The same DNA extracts analysed in the US and Portugal produced comparable qPCR results (variation <28%), except for bla OXA-1 gene (0%–57%). Presumptive total and fecal coliforms and cefotaxime-resistant total coliforms strongly correlated with bla CTX-M and intI 1 (0.725 ≤ R 2 ≤ 0.762; p < 0.0001). Further, presumptive total and fecal coliforms correlated with the Escherichia coli -specific biomarkers, gadAB, and uidA , suggesting that both methods captured fecal-sourced bacteria. The genes encoding resistance to sulphonamides ( sul1 and sul2 ) were the most abundant, followed by genes encoding resistance to tetracyclines ( tet (A) and tet (O)) and β-lactams ( bla OXA-1 and , bla CTX-M ), which was in agreement with the culture-based enumerations. The findings can help inform future application of methods being considered for international antibiotic resistance surveillance in the environment.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance monitoring; antibiotic resistant coliforms; water quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/21/4217/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/21/4217/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:21:p:4217-:d:281923

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().