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Polyethylene terephthalate microplastic fibers increase the release of extracellular antibiotic resistance genes during sewage sludge anaerobic digestion

Water Research 2022 82 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 60 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.

Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Lu Zhang, Jing Sun, Xiaohu Dai, Jing Sun, Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Lu Zhang, Zitong Peng, Zitong Peng, Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Zisha Zhang, Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Zisha Zhang, Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Zitong Peng, Zitong Peng, Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Lu Zhang, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Jing Sun, Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Lu Zhang, Lu Zhang, Lu Zhang, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Lu Zhang, Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Jing Sun, Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Xiaohu Dai, Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni Bing‐Jie Ni

Summary

Researchers found that polyethylene terephthalate microplastic fibers increased the release of antibiotic resistance genes during sewage sludge treatment. The microplastic fibers appeared to enhance the active secretion of these genes by bacteria, potentially increasing the spread of antibiotic resistance. This finding raises concerns about microplastics in wastewater acting as an overlooked factor in the growing global challenge of antibiotic resistance.

Polymers

PE PET

Microplastic fibers (MFs), as the most frequently detected microplastic shape in sewage sludge, have posed emerging concern for sludge treatment and disposal. However, the effect of MFs on antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), especially extracellular ARGs (eARGs) during sludge treatment remains far from explicit. Therefore, this study investigated the potential impact of MFs on eARGs during sludge anaerobic digestion (AD), a commonly used sludge treatment method, through long-term operation. The qPCR results showed that both absolute and relative abundances of eARGs increased with the MFs exposure during sludge AD. The average absolute and relative abundances of eight tested eARGs in the AD reactor with the highest MFs dosage (170 items/gTS) were 1.70 and 2.15 times higher than those in the control AD reactor. The metagenomics results further comfirmed the increase of eARGs abundance during sludge anaerobic digestion after MFs exposure and the enhancement did not show significant selectivity. The identification of the potential hosts of eARGs suggested the host numbers of eARGs also increased with MFs exposure, which may suggest enhanced horizonal transformation as a result of increased eARGs. Further exploring the mechansims showed that the genes involved in type IV secretion system was upregulated after MFs exposure, suggesting the active release of eARGs was enhanced with MFs exposure. In contrast, the MFs may not affect the passive release of eARGs as its impact on cell membrance damage was insignificant. The enhanced eARGs in sludge AD process may further accelerate the transport of ARGs in environment, which should be considered during sludge treatment and disposal.

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