Resistome Profile of Treated Wastewater Using Metagenomic Approach
2025
Amarachukwu Obayiuwana | Abasiofiok M. Ibekwe | Chinelo Eze
The occurrence and dissemination of resistomes within environmental compartments are worrisome, considering the huge public health challenge they may pose. Treated wastewater from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has been shown to contain enormous and diversified bacterial communities with antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) profiles, and it provides tolerable environments for their prefoliation and dissemination. This study considered the ARG profiles of a municipal WWTP that also collects wastewater from diverse production factories with the aim to determine the efficacy of the wastewater treatment plant and the prevalence of ARGs in the various compartments. The WWTP employs the conventional activated sludge system in its treatment. Our study employed metagenomic screening of ARGs and mobile genetic elements (MGEs), using different PCR assays of untreated wastewater (UTW) and treated wastewater (TWW) from the WWTP. Downstream- (RWD) and upstream- (RWU) receiving river water was also screened. Twenty-nine ARGs and two mobile genetic elements (MGEs) were screened for. Antibiotic resistance genes to all the classes of antibiotics studied were detected in all the samples. Of the twenty-nine ARGs screened for, twenty-four (82.8%) were detected, and one MGE was detected from the two screened for in the samples with the highest ARG prevalence detected in the UTW. This study shows that ARGs proliferate in every compartment of the WWTP, even in the treated water and the receiving rivers, portraying that the WWTP system was not efficient in getting rid of the resistomes, creating an important channel for human acquisition of resistant determinants to antibiotics.
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