Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, Ashworth Laboratories, Charlotte Auerbach Road, Edinburgh EH9 3FL, United Kingdom.
Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, Ashworth Laboratories, Charlotte Auerbach Road, Edinburgh EH9 3FL, United Kingdom; Clinical Infection Research Group, NHS Lothian Infection Service, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Dec 1;902:165978. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165978. Epub 2023 Aug 5.
The wastewater microbiome contains a multitude of resistant bacteria of human origin, presenting an opportunity for surveillance of resistance in the general population. However, wastewater microbial communities are also influenced by clinical sources, such as hospitals. Identifying signatures of the community and hospital resistome in wastewater is needed for interpretation and risk analysis. In this study, we compare the resistome and microbiome of hospital, community, and mixed municipal wastewater to investigate how and why the composition of these different sites differ. We conducted shotgun metagenomic analysis on wastewater samples from eight wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), four hospitals, and four community sites in Scotland, using a paired sampling design. Cluster analysis and source attribution random forest models demonstrated that the hospital resistome was distinct from community and WWTP resistomes. Hospital wastewater had a higher abundance and diversity of resistance genes, in keeping with evidence that hospitals act as a reservoir and enricher of resistance. However, this distinctive 'hospital' signature appeared to be weak in the resistome of downstream WWTPs, likely due to dilution. We conclude that hospital and community wastewater resistomes differ, with the hospital wastewater representing a reservoir of patient- and hospital environment-associated bacteria. However, this 'hospital' signature is transient and does not overwhelm the community signature in the resistome of the downstream WWTP influent.
污水微生物组中包含大量源自人类的耐药细菌，这为监测普通人群中的耐药性提供了机会。然而，污水微生物群落也受到临床来源（如医院）的影响。为了解释和进行风险分析，需要确定污水中社区和医院耐药组的特征。在这项研究中，我们比较了医院、社区和混合市政污水的耐药组和微生物组，以研究这些不同地点的组成差异的原因和方式。我们对来自苏格兰的八个污水处理厂（WWTP）、四家医院和四个社区的污水样本进行了宏基因组分析，使用了配对采样设计。聚类分析和来源归因随机森林模型表明，医院耐药组与社区和 WWTP 耐药组明显不同。医院污水中具有更高丰度和多样性的耐药基因，这与医院是耐药性的储库和富集器的证据一致。然而，这种独特的“医院”特征在下游 WWTP 的耐药组中似乎很弱，可能是由于稀释作用。我们得出结论，医院和社区污水的耐药组不同，医院污水代表了与患者和医院环境相关的细菌的储库。然而，这种“医院”特征在下游 WWTP 进水的耐药组中是短暂的，不会压倒社区特征。
