Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering , University of Southern California , 3620 South Vermont Avenue , Los Angeles , California 90089 , United States.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering , Rice University , 6100 Main Street , Houston , Texas 77005 , United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2019 Apr 2;53(7):3599-3609. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.9b00798. Epub 2019 Mar 12.
Anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) are an emerging technology with potential to improve energy efficiency and effluent reuse in mainstream wastewater treatment. However, their contribution to the proliferation of contaminants of emerging concern, such as antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), remains largely unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of select influent antibiotics at varying concentrations on the presence and abundance of ARGs in an AnMBR system and its effluent. Quantification of targeted ARGs revealed distinct profiles in biomass and effluent, with genes conferring resistance to different antibiotic classes dominating in biomass (macrolides) and effluent (sulfonamides). Effluent sul1 gene abundance was strongly correlated with abundance of intl1, signifying the potential importance of mobile genetic elements in ARG release from AnMBR systems. The addition of specific antibiotics also affected normalized abundances of their related ARGs, exemplifying the potential impact of selective pressures at both low (10 μg/L) and high (250 μg/L) influent antibiotic concentrations.
厌氧膜生物反应器（AnMBRs）是一种新兴技术，具有提高主流废水处理中能源效率和废水再利用的潜力。然而，它们对抗生素耐药基因（ARGs）等新兴关注污染物的增殖的贡献在很大程度上仍不清楚。本研究的目的是确定选择的进水抗生素在不同浓度下对 AnMBR 系统及其出水中 ARGs 的存在和丰度的影响。靶向 ARGs 的定量揭示了生物量和出水中的不同特征谱，具有不同抗生素类别的耐药基因在生物量（大环内酯类）和出水中（磺胺类）占主导地位。出水中 sul1 基因丰度与 intl1 的丰度呈强烈相关，表明移动遗传元件在 AnMBR 系统中 ARG 释放中的潜在重要性。特定抗生素的添加也影响了其相关 ARGs 的归一化丰度，这表明在低（10μg/L）和高（250μg/L）进水抗生素浓度下，选择性压力的潜在影响。
