Investigating Community Derived Antimicrobials and Resistance Genes via Wastewater-Based Epidemiology

Natalie is a visiting PhD student from the University of Bath 

Supervisors: Prof. Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern, Dr. Tom Arnot, Prof Martyn Standage 

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been hailed as one of the critical public health threats facing 21st century. Current AMR surveillance within populations relies heavily on clinical data, this however covers only a small proportion of the community as samples are from those who have seeked medical aid, hence might not be representative of the wider population. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a promising  approach of sampling influent wastewater for biomarkers in order to give public health information on the community that has contributed.

This study presents results from two catchment areas in the South-West of the UK over nine months, combining the analysis of antibiotics, metabolites and resistance genes in influent wastewater to investigate AMR within populations. Over 60 different antibiotics and metabolites covering a range of different classes have been investigated via UPLC-MS/MS. Next generation DNA sequencing along with digital PCR on seasonally relevant samples have given insight to the diversity of resistant genes present in wastewater.