Shotgun metagenomic analysis of antimicrobial resistance in wastewater

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens our modern standard of living with the potential return to a pre-antibiotic condition where deadly infections are no longer treatable. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are vital components in water sanitation infrastructure and are now also being recognized as valuable monitoring points for antibiotics, antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB), and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) disposed of or excreted by human populations. Hospital waste water is of special interest as a potential focused monitoring point and in general research is needed to establish the benefits of both on-site and community-scale wastewater treatment as important barriers to the disseminators of ARGs into the environment. The research aims described herein examine these components of wastewater treatment and how they relate to AMR indicators identified through metagenomic sequencing.