This document discusses strategies to combat antibiotic resistance bacteria in wastewater treatment plants. It describes various treatments used at wastewater treatment plants including anaerobic and aerobic treatment reactors, constructed wetlands, and disinfection methods like chlorination. These treatments have been shown to significantly reduce the levels of antibiotic resistance bacteria and genes in wastewater effluent. The document also discusses how nanomaterials may provide effective defenses against antibiotic resistance through mechanisms like reactive oxygen species generation and physical damage to bacteria.

1. Strategies to combat
antibiotic resistance bacteria
in wastewater treatment
plant.
Name Maria Javed

2. Antibiotics
Antibiotic are chemotherapeutic substance that are capable of killing
and inhibiting growth of specific microorganism, such as infectious
bacteria and fungi.
● Classes of antibiotics
● Ampoxicillin
● Penicillin
● Vancomycin
● Beta-lactam
● Macrolides
● Quinolone
● Tetracyclines
First antibiotic
● Penicillin
● 1928
● Alexander Fleming
● Penicillium notatum
● Nobel prize in 1945

3. Classification of antibiotics

4. Timeline of antibiotic
Causes of antibiotic resistance
● Overuse of antibiotic
● Antibiotic taken for viral
infection
● Lack of hygiene
● Prescription not taken correctly
● Use of antibiotic in foods
● Antibiotic sold without medical
supervision
● Use of other person left over
antibiotics

5. Target of antimicrobials.
● Degradation of cell
wall structure e.g
(penicillin)
● Disruption of
membrane
permeability e.g
(polymyxin).
● Blockage of
protein synthesis
● Blockage of
transcription
process e.g
(quinolones)
● Inhibition of folate
synthesis e.g
(trimethoprim)

6. Antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic resistance occur when it has lost it stability to
effectively control and kill bacterial growth; in other words the
bacteria are resistance and continue to multiply in the
presence of therapeutic level of antibiotics.
● Killing 700,000 people a year
● 10 million death per year by 2050
● The European Centre for disease Prevention and
Control estimate that each year 25,000 people in
Europe die.
● Impose a significant financial burden on world
economics, with the USA alone spending an estimated
$35 billion per annum on treatment of resistance
infection.

7. ● Decrease cell wall
permeability to
antibiotics.
● Increase efflux pump
● Inactivating antibiotics
● Modification in the target
sites.
Antibiotic resistance modification in bacteria
Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT)

8. Bacteria develop resistance mechanism by these methods.
● Conjugation
● Transduction
● Transformation

9. Increasing level of antibiotic resistance bacteria carrying antibiotic resistance genes in the environment especially
in the water and wastewater is the serious human health issue.
Wastewater treatment plant
● Aquatic ecosystems are ideal sites for occurrence and spread of ARGs since they are constantly polluted
by antimicrobial compounds resulting from anthropogenic activities . These ARGs accumulate in the
ecosystem and transfer to clinical pathogens through HGT, causing the failure of antibiotic treatment in
the future.
● Diverse ARGs have reduced susceptibility of pathogens to different antibiotics like sulfonamide (sul),
tetracycline (tet), fluoroquinolone (qnr), macrolide (erm), chloramphenicol (cml, flo), methicillin
(mec), and b-lactam (bla). High concentrations of ARB and ARGs in industrial, community, clinical,
and farming wastewaters are threats to the ecosystems .
● Therefore, the concentration of ARGs in the effluent of WWTPs is often more than the concentration
of ARGs in the natural rivers, and discharge of WWTPs' effluent in the natural rivers lead to
dissemination of ARGs in the environment. The study of ARGs occurrence in sediments, lakes, rivers,
and soils prove this correlation

10. Treatments
Anaerobic and/or Aerobic Treatment Reactors
Aerobic and anaerobic treatment processes are low energy and environmentally friendly strategies which are
mostly used to treat chemical oxygen demand (COD), moreover, they can successfully remove ARB and ARGs.
Removed about 82 %and 62% antibiotic resistance form the influent.
Constructed Wetlands
Constructed Wetlands are small semi-aquatic ecosystems, in which a great population of different microbial
community multiplies and various physical-chemical reactions happen. Over the past years, man-made
wetlands have been designed and they are known as attractive municipal, industrial and agricultural
wastewater treatment approaches because of their simplicity, cost efficiency, and effect on eliminating ARGs .
Characteristics of constructed wetland can affect ARB and ARGs removal efficiency.

11. Disinfection
● Disinfection of water and wastewater is a process that kills a significant percentage of pathogenic organisms that
may cause bacterial, viral or parasitic diseases. The most popular disinfection process in wastewater treatment is
chlorination since it is available and effective, however, ozone and UV radiation also are employed. WWTPs are
hotspots for ARB and ARGs, and there are so many heterotrophic bacteria in the effluents exhibiting resistance
to multiple antibiotics.
● studied fates of nine different ARB and two series of ARGs [ere(A), ere(B), erm(A), erm(B), tet(A), tet(B),
tet(M), and tet(O)] in treated wastewater using chlorination. Their detailed quantitative real-time PCR
examination and analysis showed 60 and 20% removal of these genes, respectively, applying various doses of
chlorine ranging from 15 to 300. All the bacteria, other than sulfadiazine- and erythromycin-resistant bacteria,
were inactivated fully by just 15. Sulfadiazine- and erythromycin-resistant bacteria were inactivated when the
chlorine dose was more than 60.

12. Nanomaterial
Many diverse combinations of nanomaterial have proved that antimicrobial nanotechnology can be effective defences
against antibiotic resistance, ARB, and ARGs. The surface charge on these nanoparticles can facilitate binding to
the opposite surface charge of the bacteria, leading to effective antimicrobial activities
Mechanisms
Antibacterial effects by reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation
Antimicrobial effects by physical damage
Antimicrobial effects by binding
Antimicrobial effects by release of metal ions

13. Refrences
● Morones, J. R., Elechiguerra, J. L., Camacho, A., Holt, K., Kouri, J. B., Ramírez, J. T., & Yacaman, M. J.
(2005). The bactericidal effect of silver nanoparticles. Nanotechnology, 16(10), 2346.
● Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (US). (2013). Antibiotic resistance threats in the
United States, 2013. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, US Department of Health and
Human Services.
● Thomas, C. M., & Nielsen, K. M. (2005). Mechanisms of, and barriers to, horizontal gene transfer
between bacteria. Nature reviews microbiology, 3(9), 711.
● Silver, L. L. (2012). Rational approaches to antibacterial discovery: pre-genomic directed and
phenotypic screening. In Antibiotic Discovery and Development (pp. 33-75). Springer, Boston,
MA.
● Christgen, B., Yang, Y., Ahammad, S. Z., Li, B., Rodriquez, D. C., Zhang, T., & Graham, D. W. (2015).
Metagenomics shows that low-energy anaerobic− aerobic treatment reactors reduce antibiotic resistance
gene levels from domestic wastewater. Environmental science & technology, 49(4), 2577-2584.

14. Thank you