Journal
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 62, Issue 7, Pages 600-607Publisher
CANADIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING, NRC RESEARCH PRESS
DOI: 10.1139/cjm-2016-0034
Keywords
antibiotic resistance; mobile genetic elements; sewage sludge; soil quality; crop quality
Categories
Funding
- Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Growing Forward 2 program
- NSERC
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Sewage sludge recovered from wastewater treatment plants contains antibiotic residues and is rich in antibiotic resistance genes, selected for and enriched in the digestive tracts of human using antibiotics. The use of sewage sludge as a crop fertilizer constitutes a potential route of human exposure to antibiotic resistance genes through consumption of contaminated crops. Several gene targets associated with antibiotic resistance (catA1, catB3, ereA, ereB, erm(B), str(A), str(B), qnrD, sul1, and mphA), mobile genetic elements (int1, mobA, IncW repA, IncP1 groups -alpha,-beta,-delta,-gamma, -epsilon), and bacterial 16S rRNA (rrnS) were quantified by qPCR from soil and vegetable samples obtained from unamended and sludge-amended plots at an experimental field in London, Ontario. The qPCR data reveals an increase in abundance of gene targets in the soil and vegetables samples, indicating that there is potential for additional crop exposure to antibiotic resistance genes carried within sewage sludge following field application. It is therefore advisable to allow an appropriate delay period before harvesting of vegetables for human consumption.
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