ROLE OF BIOLOGICAL TREATMENT OF WASTEWATER IN REMOVAL OF ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANT BACTERIA

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the present study, the antibiograms of 155 isolates of fecal bacterial indicators (Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis) and 152 isolates of pathogenic bacteria (Salmonella Typhimurium and Staphylococcus aureus) which isolated from Zenein wastewater treatment plant (ZWWTP) were studied in order to evaluate the role of biological treatment of wastewater in the removal of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB). The main observation in this study is, the resistance phenomenon was increased through the treatment stages for all tested bacteria due to the horizontal gene transfer of antibiotic resistant genes. Also, the multiple antibiotic resistance index (MAR-index) for all bacterial isolates were exceed 0.25 and ranged from 0.375 to 0.875 which revealed their public and ecological health implications. The link between phenotypes and genotypes of antibiotic resistance is very important. Thus, all bacterial isolates that were exhibiting phenotypic resistance to the tested antibiotics were characterized for the presence of associated antibiotic resistant genes using multiplex PCR assay with their specific primers. The results of this study showed an obvious correlation between phenotypic resistance and corresponding antibiotic resistant genes (ARG) in all studied antibiotics and bacterial strains.