A Simple Model of Tetracycline Antibiotic Resistance in the Aquatic Environment (with Application to the Poudre River)
Ferdi L. Hellweger,
Xiaodan Ruan and
Sarah Sanchez
Additional contact information
Ferdi L. Hellweger: Center for Urban Environmental Studies, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Xiaodan Ruan: Center for Urban Environmental Studies, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Sarah Sanchez: Center for Urban Environmental Studies, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA
IJERPH, 2011, vol. 8, issue 2, 1-18
Abstract:
Antibiotic resistance is a major concern, yet it is unclear what causes the relatively high densities of resistant bacteria in the anthropogenically impacted environment. There are various possible scenarios (hypotheses): (A) Input of resistant bacteria from wastewater and agricultural sources is significant, but they do not grow in the environment; (B) Input of resistant bacteria is negligible, but the resistant bacteria (exogenous or endogenous) grow due to the selection pressure of the antibiotic; (C) Exogenous bacteria transfer the resistance to the endogenous bacteria and those grow. This paper presents a simple mechanistic model of tetracycline resistance in the aquatic environment. It includes state variables for tetracyclines, susceptible and resistant bacteria, and particulate and dissolved organic matter in the water column and sediment bed. The antibiotic partitions between freely dissolved, dissolved organic matter (DOM)-bound and solids-bound phases, and decays. Bacteria growth is limited by DOM, inhibited by the antibiotic (susceptible bacteria only) and lower due to the metabolic cost of carrying the resistance (resistant bacteria only). Resistant bacteria can transfer resistance to the susceptible bacteria (conjugation) and lose the resistance (segregation). The model is applied to the Poudre River and can reproduce the major observed (literature data) patterns of antibiotic concentration and resistance. The model suggests observed densities of resistant bacteria in the sediment bed cannot be explained by input (scenario A), but require growth (scenarios B or C).
Keywords: antibiotic; antibiotic resistance; model; tetracycline; Poudre River (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/8/2/480/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/8/2/480/ (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:8:y:2011:i:2:p:480-497:d:11329
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 ().