Browsing by Subject "wastewater"

The emerging crisis of antimicrobial resistance is especially worrisome in low-income countries that lack controlled antibiotic policy and have poor infrastructure. Inadequate hygiene practices combined with ability of microbes to quickly evolve and adapt to changes rise the concern of resistance of infectious pathogens to many first-line antimicrobial drugs. Moreover, wastewaters that are widely used as irrigation water in urban gardening in sub-Saharan Africa, can function as vehicle for the dissemination of bacteria that carry antimicrobial resistance genes into the surrounding environment. In this study, eight anthropogenically impacted water samples were collected from Burkina Faso and Mali and differences in their microbial communities were evaluated by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Also, the presence of antimicrobial resistance genes was examined with SmartChip qPCR. The bacterial host range of blaNDM, blaCTX-M, blaOXA and qacE∆1 was profiled using a novel culture- independent technique, Emulsion, Paired Isolation and Concatenation PCR (epicPCR). The presence of 202 genes associated with antimicrobial resistance were detected with SmartChip qPCR array analysis, including carbapenemase genes that can transfer horizontally. Worryingly, sixteen taxonomical units, including possible human pathogens Acinetobacter, Klebsiella, Escherichia and Pseudomonas, were found to carry all the four genes investigated with epicPCR. The most abundant genus Arcobacter along with Dechloromonas, Methylotenera, MM1 and Methylophilus were new discoveries as blaNDM hosts. Furthermore, a considerable number of blaOXA and clinical class 1 integron marker qacE∆1 gene hosts were discovered in every sample. Lastly, putative events of horizontal gene transfer in two WWTP samples were observed. Broad host range of blaOXA and qacE∆1 genes suggests a heavy antimicrobial resistance genes burden in West Africa and the results support the theory that environmental bacteria can function as resistance gene reservoirs. These results show occurrence of horizontally transferrable blaNDM and blaCTX-M genes in pathogens especially in hospital wastewater, and a threat of their spread into the environment and to the community. However, to decipher their role in the infectious disease burden in Africa, more research is needed.