Municipal Wastewaters Carry Important Carbapenemase Genes Independent of Hospital Input and Can Mirror Clinical Resistance Patterns
Adela Teban-Man, Edina Szekeres, Peiju Fang, Uli Klümper, Adriana Hegedűs, Andreea Baricz, Thomas U. Berendonk, Marcel Pârvu, Cristian Coman
Abstract
Wastewater-based epidemiology has recently been recognized as a valuable, cost-effective tool for antimicrobial resistance surveillance. It can help gain insights into the characteristics and distribution of antibiotic resistance elements at a local, national, and even global scale. In this study, we investigated the possible use of municipal wastewaters in the surveillance of clinically relevant carbapenemase-encoding genes (CRGs), seen as critical antibiotic resistance determinants. In this matter, our results highlight positive correlations among CRGs, microbial diversity, and wastewater physical and chemical parameters. Identified predictors can provide valuable data regarding the level of raw and treated wastewater contamination with these important antibiotic resistance genes. Also, wastewater-based gene abundances were used for the first time to observe possible spatiotemporal trends of CRGs incidence in the general population. Therefore, possible hot spots of carbapenem resistance could be easily identified at the community level, surpassing the limitations of health care-associated settings.