Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.3389/fmicb.2021.737831
Licence creative commons licence
Title (Primary) The impact of the antibiotic fosfomycin on wastewater communities measured by flow cytometry
Author Li, S.; Liu, Z.; Süring, C.; Müller, S.; Zeng, P.
Source Titel Frontiers in Microbiology
Year 2022
Department UMB
Volume 12
Page From art. 737831
Language englisch
Topic T7 Bioeconomy
Supplements https://ndownloader.figstatic.com/collections/5872520/versions/1
Keywords fosfomycin; spread of antibiotics; microbial community dynamics; ecology of microbial communities; single cell analytics; bio-augmentation
Abstract Fosfomycin is a re-emergent antibiotic known to be effective against severe bacterial infections even when other antibiotics fail. To avoid overuse and thus the risk of new antibiotic resistance, the European Commission has recommended the intravenous use of fosfomycin only when other antibiotic treatments fail. A release of fosfomycin into the environment via wastewater from not only municipalities but also already from the producing pharmaceutical industry can seriously undermine a sustaining therapeutic value. We showed in long-term continuous-mode bioreactor cultivation and by using microbial community flow cytometry, microbial community ecology tools, and cell sorting that the micro-pollutant altered the bacterial wastewater community (WWC) composition within only a few generations. Under these conditions, fosfomycin was not readily degraded both at lower and higher concentrations. At the same time, operational reactor parameters and typical diversity parameters such as α- and intracommunity β-diversity did not point to system changes. Nevertheless, an intrinsic compositional change occurred, caused by a turnover process in which higher concentrations of fosfomycin selected for organisms known to frequently harbor antibiotic resistance genes. A gfp-labeled Pseudomonas putida strain, used as the model organism and a possible future chassis for fosfomycin degradation pathways, was augmented and outcompeted in all tested situations. The results suggest that WWCs, as complex communities, may tolerate fosfomycin for a time, but selection for cell types that may develop resistance is very likely. The approach presented allows very rapid assessment and visualization of the impact of antibiotics on natural or managed microbial communities in general and on individual members of these communities in particular.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=25845
Li, S., Liu, Z., Süring, C., Müller, S., Zeng, P. (2022):
The impact of the antibiotic fosfomycin on wastewater communities measured by flow cytometry
Front. Microbiol. 12 , art. 737831 10.3389/fmicb.2021.737831