Abstract
Antibiotics are some of the most essential lifesaving drugs currently available to us against infectious diseases. Several pathogens are developing resistance to these drugs and many have become resistant to multiple antibiotics. Such multi-drug resistance is becoming a global issue and has been found in many environments including wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). In this study, we sampled a local WWTP for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This WWTP is in North Georgia and runs directly into Lake Lanier, which is the main source of drinking water for the Atlanta area as well as a popular spot for water recreation. We obtained treated and raw sewage water samples. These water samples were filtered, grown in an enrichment media and plated on selective media containing antibiotics that yielded the isolation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. These isolates were further characterized for antibiotic resistance using disk diffusion method and identified using 16s rRNA gene sequencing. All isolates obtained from both raw sewage and treated water samples were multi-drug resistant. Further analysis using PCR revealed all isolates possessed at least one bla gene and hence were identified to be ESBL-producing bacteria. Our results are consistent with other findings reported worldwide suggesting multi-drug resistant bacteria persist in treated water.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Brandon Mangum and Michael West for technical support, and University of North Georgia CURCA and Biology Department for funding the project.
Recommended Citation
Moua, Nou; McCuen, Lindsay; White, Sarah; Bhat, Swapna; Flood, Margi; and Morgan, Jeanelle
(2024)
"ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT GRAM-NEGATIVE BACTERIA IN A LOCAL WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT IN NORTH GEORGIA,"
Georgia Journal of Science, Vol. 82, No. 2, Article 5.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.gaacademy.org/gjs/vol82/iss2/5