Nimonkar, Y.S. and Talreja, P. and Sharma, A. and Patil, P. and Saware, S.S. and Ranade, D.R. and Om Prakash, (2019) Assessment of the Role of Wastewater Treatment Plant in Spread of Antibiotic Resistance and Bacterial Pathogens. Indian Journal of Microbiology, 59 (3). pp. 261-265.

Text 93.Dr. Shouche Y.S. (Indian Jr of Mircrobiology).pdf Restricted to Registered users only Download (641Kb)

Abstract

In current study, we performed a comparative study on bacterial load, total coliform counts and type of organisms present in pre- and post-treated wastewater samples from municipal wastewater treatment plant of Pune, India. In addition, we also studied the antibiotic resistance profiling and role of the selected treatment plant in spread of antibiotic resistance in the environment. Data showed that total 30 different bacterial species from 18-different genera were present in untreated wastewater while only 9 species from 6-different genera were present in post-treated effluent. Furthermore, pre-treated wastewater sample contains wide range of organisms with high levels of antibiotic resistance while bacterial load reduced drastically and pathogens were absent from post-treated effluent. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) receives wastewater from different sources and contains various kinds pollutants, toxic substances and a pool of bacteria [1, 2]. Discharge of untreated water into fresh water bodies, results into death of the flora and fauna. The aim of wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) is to minimize the adverse effect of untreated wastewater on ecology, environment and human health by its adequate treatment prior to release in ecosystem. Different kinds of antibiotics have been used in human therapy, veterinary and animal farming and a huge load of antibiotics are being released into the municipal wastewater which ultimately finds its way into environment [3, 4]. Widespread use of antibiotics exerts selection pressure on bacterial population and leads to spread of antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) and antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) in environment [5, 6]. This process further augmented by transfer the resistant genes through horizontal gene transfer [7]. Urban WWTP are considered to be the hotspots for development of antibiotic resistant bacterial population because it receives residual antibiotics from various sources through wastewater and thus play an important role in spread of ARB and ARGs [8]. Therefore, a mechanistic understanding about the type of treatment plant, their source of wastewater, load and antibiotic profiling of microorganisms in influent and effluent is imperative to improve the treatment process and to mitigate the problem of spread of ARGs and ARB. In current study, we tried to explore the cultivable bacterial population from pre- and post-treated wastewater samples collected from municipal wastewater treatment plant of Pune, India and studied their antibiotic susceptibility and resistance. We also enumerated bacterial load in pre- and post-treated wastewater sample by total viable count and most probable number (MPN) methods and studied the efficacy of current wastewater treatment plant in reduction of bacterial load and spread of antibiotics resistant bacteria in the environment. Result of the study indicated that the wastewater treatment plant was working effectively and efficiently by reducing the bacterial load in post-treated wastewater. An influent and effluent water sample from wastewater treatment plant operating on Sequential Batch Reactor (SBR) process of Pune Municipal Corporation was collected using aseptic procedure. The capacity of selected sewage treatment plant was 20 million litres per day (20MLD Fig. 1). Samples were transported to the laboratory on ice and stored in cold room at 4 °C and bacterial isolation was started within 4-h of sampling. In order to capture the maximum culturable diversity, different media were used. A tenfold serial dilutions of influent and effluent water samples were prepared and spread on media plates. Plates were incubated at 30 °C for 72–96 h and checked for colonies. Morphologically distinct colonies were picked and purified by several re-streaking and preserved in glycerol stocks as earlier [9, 10]. Purified strains were identified using MALDI-TOF MS and 16S rRNA gene sequencing approach as discussed earlier [11, 12].

Item Type:	Article
Depositing User:	Mr. Rameshwar Nema
Date Deposited:	24 Feb 2020 06:24
Last Modified:	10 Feb 2021 07:49
URI:	http://nccs.sciencecentral.in/id/eprint/752

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