Oxidation and Disinfection Processes as Barriers to the Dissemination of Bacterial Antibiotic Resistance Genes via Water and Wastewater

Disinfection processes in drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities may be an important barrier for combating antibiotic resistance from antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and extracellular/intracellular antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs). However, conventional water and wastewater treatment plants are designed to minimize the dissemination of ARB, not ARGs. The intact extracellular and intracellular ARGs that survived disinfection could still propagate antibiotic resistance by means of natural transformation and/or transduction - horizontal gene transfer processes that do not require live donor cells. Thus far, little is known about the effects of common disinfectants on ARGs. This study systematically evaluated the likelihood of intact, biologically-active extracellular/intracellular ARGs surviving disinfection processes in buffered water matrixes. Our data suggests that ARGs can indeed survive disinfection processes intact.