Metagenomic Analysis of Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Untreated Wastewater From Three Different Hospitals

Abstract

Controlling antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) is a worldwide intervention to ensure global health. Hospital wastewater is the main pollution source of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and ARGs in the environment. Expanding our knowledge on the bacterial composition of hospital wastewater could help us to control infections in hospitals and decrease pathogen release into the environment. In this study, a high-throughput sequencing-based metagenomic approach was applied to investigate the community composition of bacteria and ARGs in untreated wastewater from three different types of hospitals [the general hospital, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) hospital, and stomatology hospital]. In total, 130 phyla and 2,554 genera were identified from the microbiota of the wastewaters, with significantly different bacterial community compositions among the three hospitals. Total ARG analysis using the Antibiotic Resistance Genes Database (ARDB) and Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD) revealed that the microbiota in the wastewaters from the three hospitals harbored different types and percentage of ARGs, and their composition was specific to the hospital type based on the correlation analysis between species and ARG abundance, some ARGs contributed to different bacterial genera with various relationships in different hospitals. In summary, our findings demonstrated a widespread occurrence of ARGs and ARG-harboring microbiota in untreated wastewaters of different hospitals, suggesting that protection measures should be applied to prevent human infections. Concurrently, hospital wastewater should be treated more specifically for the removal of pathogens before its discharge into the urban sewage system.