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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to An Overview of the Impact of Pharmaceuticals on Aquatic Microbial Communities
ClearPharmaceuticals in Water: Risks to Aquatic Life and Remediation Strategies
This review examines how pharmaceutical drugs in waterways threaten aquatic life and potentially human health. The biggest concern is the rise of antibiotic resistance from drugs entering water through household and agricultural waste. While not specifically about microplastics, the topic is connected because microplastics can adsorb and transport pharmaceutical residues through water systems.
Proclivities for prevalence and treatment of antibiotics in the ambient water: a review
This review critically examines the prevalence of antibiotics in ambient water systems and the challenges of treating antibiotic-contaminated water. Researchers found that antibiotic resistance in water environments has emerged as a major public health concern, driven by pharmaceutical runoff and inadequate wastewater treatment. The study evaluates various treatment technologies and emphasizes the need for better monitoring and removal strategies to address this growing threat to water quality.
Impacts of Pharmaceuticals on Microbial Colonization of Microplastic in Streams
This study examined how pharmaceutical contaminants in streams affect microbial communities that colonize microplastics. Pharmaceutical-exposed microplastics developed distinctly different microbial communities than unexposed ones, suggesting that the combined presence of microplastics and pharmaceuticals creates novel ecological conditions in urban waterways.
Environmental Biofilms as Reservoirs for Antimicrobial Resistance
This review examined how environmental biofilms serve as reservoirs for antimicrobial resistance, particularly in settings with low, sub-minimum inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics. The study suggests that constant exposure to low levels of antibiotics in natural environments may drive the development and dissemination of resistance, highlighting key knowledge gaps in understanding the environmental resistome.
Interactions between Microplastics, Biofilms, and Antimicrobials in Freshwater Streams
This research investigated how microplastics interact with antimicrobial compounds and microbial biofilms in freshwater streams. The study hypothesized that antimicrobials adsorbed onto microplastic surfaces would alter the diversity, composition, and antimicrobial resistance of colonizing microbial communities, examining multiple polymer types including acrylic and nylon in microcosm experiments.
Pharmaceuticals and Microplastics in Aquatic Environments: A Comprehensive Review of Pathways and Distribution, Toxicological and Ecological Effects
This review examines how pharmaceuticals and microplastics travel through the environment and accumulate in aquatic food chains, with drug residues found at measurable levels in surface waters and microplastics reaching densities of up to a million particles per cubic meter in some water systems. When aquatic organisms absorb these combined pollutants, the contaminants can biomagnify up the food chain to humans, affecting growth, reproduction, and immune function.
Pharmaceuticals and Microplastics in Aquatic Environments: A comprehensive Review of Pathways and Distribution, Toxicological and Ecological
This review examines how pharmaceuticals and microplastics travel through aquatic environments via wastewater, agricultural runoff, and air, and how they affect fish and other aquatic life. Both pollutants build up in the food chain through a process called biomagnification, potentially reaching humans who eat seafood. The authors call for better monitoring and treatment methods to reduce these emerging threats to water quality and public health.
Accumulation of polyethylene microplastics in river biofilms and effect on the uptake, biotransformation and toxicity of the antimicrobial triclosan
Researchers studied how polyethylene microplastics interact with river biofilms growing on natural stone surfaces and how this affects the uptake of the antimicrobial chemical triclosan. They found that the presence of microplastics altered how biofilm communities absorbed and processed triclosan, potentially changing the chemical's toxicity profile. The findings suggest that microplastics in freshwater environments can indirectly influence how other pollutants affect aquatic life.
Pharmaceuticals and micro(nano)plastics in the environment: Sorption and analytical challenges
This review examines how pharmaceutical residues and micro- and nanoplastics interact in water environments, finding that microplastics can adsorb medications and alter their environmental behavior. Factors like plastic type, surface area, and biological film growth all influence these interactions, but very few studies have been conducted under real-world conditions. The authors highlight persistent analytical challenges and the need for field-based research to understand actual risks.
Pharmaceutically active micropollutants: origin, hazards and removal
This review summarizes existing research on pharmaceutical pollutants -- such as antibiotics, painkillers, and hormones -- found in water systems around the world. While focused on drug contamination, the paper notes that microplastics can act as carriers for these pharmaceutical chemicals, potentially concentrating them and increasing human exposure through drinking water. Conventional water treatment methods are often unable to fully remove these micropollutants.
Microplastics and Antibiotics in Aquatic Environments: A Review of Their Interactions and Ecotoxicological Implications
This review examines how microplastics and antibiotics interact when they meet in water, and what that means for ecosystems and health. Antibiotics can attach to microplastic surfaces through chemical bonds, and the microplastics can then carry these drugs through the environment, potentially spreading antibiotic-resistant bacteria. While the combined threat to fish and other aquatic life needs more study, the findings raise concerns about how microplastics help move antibiotic resistance through water systems.
Bioaccessibility of Microplastic-Associated Antibiotics in Freshwater Organisms: Highlighting the Impacts of Biofilm Colonization via an In Vitro Protocol
Researchers found that biofilm colonization on microplastics significantly alters the bioaccessibility of associated antibiotics in freshwater organisms, with biofilms acting as reactive coatings that change how pollutants are released and taken up by aquatic life.
Adsorption of the antimicrobial triclosan to microplastics impacts biofilm and planktonic microbial communities in freshwater
Researchers tested how triclosan—an antimicrobial compound—adsorbs to microplastics and what effect this has on microbial biofilm communities in freshwater. Triclosan-loaded microplastics shifted microbial community composition and increased abundance of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in biofilms, demonstrating that microplastics acting as vectors for antimicrobials can restructure freshwater microbial ecosystems.
Interaction between antibiotics and microplastics: Recent advances and perspective
This review examines how microplastics in water can absorb antibiotic pollutants onto their surface, especially as the plastics age and develop bacterial biofilms. This interaction is concerning for human health because microplastics carrying antibiotics could promote antibiotic-resistant bacteria in waterways, making infections harder to treat.
Environmental Fate of Emerging Organic Micro-Contaminants
This review covers the sources, fate, and toxicity of pharmaceuticals and other organic micropollutants in natural and built environments. It examines how these contaminants, which often co-occur with microplastics, persist in water systems and affect aquatic organisms.
Microplastic–Pharmaceuticals Interaction in Water Systems
This review examined the interactions between microplastics and pharmaceutical compounds in aquatic environments, exploring how microplastics act as vectors that concentrate, transport, and potentially enhance the bioavailability and toxicity of drug residues in water.
Microbiological perspectives on the effects of microplastics on the aquatic environment
This review examines how microplastics interact with microorganisms in aquatic environments, highlighting risks to microbial communities and the potential for microplastics to disrupt ecosystem functions. Microplastics may alter microbial diversity and promote the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Microplastics in fresh- and wastewater are potential contributors to antibiotic resistance - A minireview
Researchers reviewed the link between microplastic pollution and the spread of antibiotic resistance in freshwater environments, finding that microplastic surfaces host unique bacterial communities enriched in antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the resistance genes they can share with other microbes. The close packing of bacteria in these plastic-surface biofilms may accelerate the spread of drug-resistant pathogens through drinking water sources, though the full health implications remain poorly understood.
Occurrence, fate, and toxicity of emerging contaminants in a diverse ecosystem
This review examined the occurrence, fate, and toxicity of emerging contaminants including microplastics, pharmaceuticals, and endocrine disruptors across diverse ecosystems, tracing their pathways from wastewater treatment systems into natural environments.
Interaction between Microplastics and Pharmaceuticals Depending on the Composition of Aquatic Environment
This review examines how aquatic environmental conditions — including dissolved organic matter, salinity, pH, and temperature — influence the adsorption and desorption of pharmaceuticals onto microplastic surfaces, showing that water composition significantly affects the extent to which microplastics act as vectors for drug contaminants.
Biofilm formation on microplastics and interactions with antibiotics, antibiotic resistance genes and pathogens in aquatic environment
This review explains how microplastics in waterways develop bacterial biofilms on their surfaces that can harbor antibiotic-resistant bacteria and help spread antibiotic resistance genes to new environments. This is concerning for human health because these resistant microbes could eventually reach people through drinking water or seafood consumption.
A Comprehensive Review of Biofilm Composition and Factors Affecting Efficacy in Microbial Bioremediation
This review examines biofilm-mediated bioremediation, analyzing biofilm formation, structural diversity, and biochemical degradation pathways used to break down organic pollutants, heavy metals, microplastics, and pharmaceutical contaminants, while also discussing environmental factors and challenges such as antimicrobial resistance that affect biofilm efficacy in real-world remediation applications.
On the Generation, Impact and Removal of Antibiotic Resistance in the Water Environment
This review explains how antibiotic resistance develops and spreads through water environments — including rivers, groundwater, and wastewater. The findings are relevant to microplastics because plastic particles in water are known to accumulate antibiotic-resistant bacteria, potentially accelerating the spread of drug resistance through aquatic systems.
Pharmaceuticals in the Aquatic Environment: A Review on Eco-Toxicology and the Remediation Potential of Algae
This review examines how pharmaceutical drugs end up in water through human activity and the damage they cause to aquatic life. Standard wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove these drugs effectively, so researchers are exploring the use of algae as a low-cost, natural cleanup method. While not directly about microplastics, this is relevant because microplastics in water can absorb and transport pharmaceutical chemicals, potentially increasing human exposure.