Fate of antibiotic resistance genes in two Arctic tundra wetlands impacted by municipal wastewater

In the Canadian Arctic, it is common practice to discharge municipal wastewater into tundra wetlands. Antibiotic resistant bacteria and the antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) they contain can be present in municipal wastewater and there is a scarcity of knowledge on ARGs in wastewater in Arctic envi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Science of the total environment 2018-11, Vol.642, p.1415-1428
Main Authors: Hayward, Jennifer L., Jackson, Amy J., Yost, Christopher K., Truelstrup Hansen, Lisbeth, Jamieson, Rob C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anti-Bacterial Agents
Antimicrobial resistance
Arctic
ARG
Canada
Cold climate
Drug Resistance, Microbial - genetics
Environmental Monitoring
Genes, Bacterial
Nunavut
qPCR
Tundra
Tundra wetland hydrology
Waste Disposal, Fluid
Waste Water - microbiology
Wetlands
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Summary:In the Canadian Arctic, it is common practice to discharge municipal wastewater into tundra wetlands. Antibiotic resistant bacteria and the antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) they contain can be present in municipal wastewater and there is a scarcity of knowledge on ARGs in wastewater in Arctic environments. This study was initiated on the fate of ARGs in tundra wetland ecosystems impacted by anthropogenic wastewater sources in Arctic communities. In the summer season of 2016, two wetlands were studied in the Inuit communities of Sanikiluaq and Naujaat in Nunavut, Canada. Genomic DNA was extracted from both soil and water during the spring freshet and late summer in the wetlands, and a suite of nine clinically relevant ARGs (sul1, sul2, mecA, vanA, qnrS, ermB, tetO, blaTEM, blaCTX-M), and an integron gene (int1) were analyzed using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Hydrological and water quality measurements were conducted in conjunction with the microbiological sampling. Gene targets were consistently present in the wastewater, and throughout both wetlands, except for vanA and mecA. Concentrations of ARGs were greater during the spring freshet, due to short hydraulic retention times (
ISSN:0048-9697
1879-1026
DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.06.083