Co-Occurrence of crAssphage with Antibiotic Resistance Genes in an

Mar 19, 2019 - User Resources. About Us · ACS Members · Librarians · ACS Publishing Center · Website Demos · Privacy Policy · Mobile Site ...
0 downloads 0 Views 439KB Size
Subscriber access provided by Drexel University Libraries

Ecotoxicology and Human Environmental Health

Co-occurrence of crAssphage with antibiotic resistance genes in an impacted urban watershed Elyse Stachler, Katherine Crank, and Kyle Bibby Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett., Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.9b00130 • Publication Date (Web): 19 Mar 2019 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on March 22, 2019

Just Accepted “Just Accepted” manuscripts have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication. They are posted online prior to technical editing, formatting for publication and author proofing. The American Chemical Society provides “Just Accepted” as a service to the research community to expedite the dissemination of scientific material as soon as possible after acceptance. “Just Accepted” manuscripts appear in full in PDF format accompanied by an HTML abstract. “Just Accepted” manuscripts have been fully peer reviewed, but should not be considered the official version of record. They are citable by the Digital Object Identifier (DOI®). “Just Accepted” is an optional service offered to authors. Therefore, the “Just Accepted” Web site may not include all articles that will be published in the journal. After a manuscript is technically edited and formatted, it will be removed from the “Just Accepted” Web site and published as an ASAP article. Note that technical editing may introduce minor changes to the manuscript text and/or graphics which could affect content, and all legal disclaimers and ethical guidelines that apply to the journal pertain. ACS cannot be held responsible for errors or consequences arising from the use of information contained in these “Just Accepted” manuscripts.

is published by the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street N.W., Washington, DC 20036 Published by American Chemical Society. Copyright © American Chemical Society. However, no copyright claim is made to original U.S. Government works, or works produced by employees of any Commonwealth realm Crown government in the course of their duties.

Page 1 of 20

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

1

Co-occurrence of crAssphage with antibiotic

2

resistance genes in an impacted urban watershed

3 4

Elyse Stachlera,b, Katherine Crankc, Kyle Bibbyc*

5 6

a Department

7

Pittsburgh, PA, 15261, USA;

8

b

9

Switzerland;

of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Pittsburgh,

Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, 8600,

10

c Department

11

Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

* Corresponding Author: Kyle Bibby, [email protected], +1-574-631-1130

20

Keywords

crAssphage, antibiotic resistance, ddPCR, bacteriophage, water quality

21 22 23 1 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

Page 2 of 20

24

Abstract

25

Environments that receive fecal pollution are reservoirs of antibiotic resistance. Recent

26

metagenomic observations suggest that the fecal pollution indicator crAssphage

27

correlates with antibiotic resistance gene (ARG) occurrence in the environment.

28

Expanding the utility of the fecal pollution indicator crAssphage to represent

29

environmental occurrence of ARGs would potentially facilitate ARG management in

30

fecal-pollution contaminated environments. In the current study we analyzed a suite of

31

molecular indicators for ARGs and crAssphage over a 30-day sampling period in an

32

urban stream that receives combined sewer overflows. The sampled stream showed

33

high levels of ARGs and crAssphage with statistically significant elevated levels during

34

wet weather events. The observed correlation between crAssphage and ARG molecular

35

detections was high when all were measured using digital droplet PCR. Quantitative

36

PCR and digital droplet PCR quantifications of crAssphage showed only moderate

37

agreement, emphasizing the importance of detection technology when making

38

quantitative comparisons. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential of a crAssphage

39

fecal indicator to correlate with ARG occurrence when employing a ‘toolbox’ approach to

40

fecal pollution management.

41

TOC Art

2 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Page 3 of 20

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

42 43

Introduction

44

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics results in billions of dollars in direct healthcare

45

costs per year, while deaths due to antibiotic resistance are expected to increase in the

46

future, causing a predicted 10 million deaths per year globally by 20501. Genetic

47

determinants of antibiotic resistance, i.e., antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), are

48

abundant in human fecal material and wastewater.2-6 Untreated wastewater can enter

49

natural bodies of water from leaking sanitary sewer lines, leaking septage tanks, and

50

during large rain events which cause combined sewers to overflow into natural systems.

51

Environmental ARG presence has also become a concern for the introduction of ARGs

52

to health-relevant microorganisms through horizontal gene transfer.7, 8

53

Improved monitoring of ARGs in natural water systems can contribute to

54

strategies to reduce ARG proliferation through the environment. A recent metagenomics-

55

based study found correlation between total ARGs and the human gut bacteriophage

56

crAssphage employed as a human-specific fecal indicator.9 CrAssphage is a proposed

57

bacteriophage-based fecal pollution indicator that is highly human associated,10, 11

58

abundant in sewage and sewage-impacted environments,10-12 and globally distributed13;

59

however, the correlation of crAssphage abundance with ARGs has not yet been directly 3 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

60

assessed. Co-occurrence of crAssphage with ARGs would strengthen the application of

61

this indicator for fecal pollution management.

62

Page 4 of 20

The ARGs surveyed in this study were chosen to cover resistance to a wide

63

variety of antibiotics (macrolides, sulfonamides, and tetracyclines), including how long

64

they have been in use, their source, and application. Macrolides and tetracyclines were

65

both originally isolated from Streptomyces, while sulfonamides were the first synthetic

66

antibiotics in use6, 14. Macrolides (active against Gram-positive bacteria) and

67

tetracyclines (broad spectrum activity) both inhibit bacterial growth by interfering with

68

protein synthesis.6, 14 Sulfonamides are competitive inhibitors, preventing bacterial cells

69

to replicate.15 In addition, macrolides have a high frequency of use in human medicine,

70

while tetracyclines are used widely in agriculture as livestock growth promoters in

71

addition to being used to treat human infections.14, 16 In addition, while integrons are not

72

ARGs, they facilitate integration of plasmids or transposons that may contain ARGs into

73

the bacterial genome4, 17, 18 and are thus included in this study. Class 1 integrons have

74

been proposed as a marker for estimating anthropogenic impact in water systems.19

75

Previously, we reported on culturable and molecular indicators of fecal pollution

76

in an urban stream that receives human wastewater pollution through combined sewer

77

overflows in a 30 day survey.12 In the present study, a suite of ARGs and crAssphage

78

abundance were quantified by digital droplet PCR (ddPCR) on the samples collected in

79

this previous study. Correlations between rain events, ARG levels, and crAssphage

80

levels were analyzed to gain insight into the suitability of crAssphage as a indicator of

81

ARG presence, as well as the contribution of combined sewer overflows to ARG

82

abundance, in an environmental system. In addition, target quantifications using

4 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Page 5 of 20

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

83

emerging ddPCR technology versus quantitative PCR (qPCR) were compared to provide

84

insight into cross-platform comparisons.

85 86

Materials and Methods

87

Study Site

88

Sampling was conducted at a small urban stream (Nine Mile Run) located in Frick Park

89

in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. The site and sampling details of the present study have been

90

described previously in a paper reporting chemical water quality parameters, culturable

91

indicators, and qPCR assays for bacterial and viral markers of human fecal pollution.12

92

Briefly, the stream was sampled daily for 30 days from September 6, 2016 through

93

October 5, 2016. During sampling, a grab sample (three liters) was collected and

94

processed daily. The surveyed stream has previously been shown to receive sewage

95

pollution both through combined sewer overflow events during wet weather and through

96

seepage of sewer lines during dry weather.12, 20 The sampling location used in this study

97

was directly downstream of a combined sewer outfall to capture changes in stream

98

quality due to this point source of pollution. Rainfall and CSO status were collected for

99

each sample day (Supporting Information).

100 101

ddPCR Assays

102

A previously described protocol was used for the simultaneous concentration of viruses

103

and bacteria from the stream water.12, 21, 22 Briefly, 500 mL of stream water was adjusted

104

to pH=3.5 and filtered through a 47-mm 0.45-µm mixed cellulose HAWG filter (Millipore,

105

Billerica, MA, USA). Duplicate filters for each sample were collected and frozen at -80°C.

106

For bulk DNA extraction, filters were thawed to room temperature and DNA was 5 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

107

extracted using a DNeasy PowerWater Kit (Qiagen, Valencia, CA, USA), following

108

manufacturer’s protocol. Extracted DNA was stored at -20°C prior to analysis. As this

109

study used legacy samples, care was taken to ensure optimal DNA integrity including

110

preparation of fresh DNA dilutions before quantification.

111

Page 6 of 20

Previously published primers and probes for assays targeting sul123, sul223,

112

tetO24, tetW24, ermF25, intI126, and crAssphage10 were used and adapted to the ddPCR

113

platform for this study (see SI). Replicate filter samples were analyzed for each assay.

114

ddPCR assay set up, primers and probes (Table S1), and controls are described in the

115

supporting information. ddPCR performance statistics are shown in Table S2. We note

116

that no inhibition was observed in samples previously using a qPCR internal

117

amplification control.12 No amplification was observed in sample NTCs.

118 119

Statistical Analyses

120

Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients (r) were calculated on the means of duplicate

121

values of each gene in GraphPad Prism 7 (La Jolla, CA, USA), using two-tailed 95%

122

confidence intervals. Correlations were also generated between the data generated in

123

this study and already published data of culturable and qPCR indicators.12 Multiple

124

comparisons were corrected for using the Holm-Bonferroni method to adjust the p-value

125

for each comparison. Coefficients are characterized by the following scale for

126

comparison purposes: 0.2-0.39 (weak correlation), 0.4-0.59 (moderate correlation), 0.6-

127

0.79 (strong correlation), and 0.8-1 (very strong correlation). Graphs were drawn in

128

GraphPad Prism 7 using averages and standard deviations of data sets. Additionally,

129

gene copy concentrations were compared between dry weather days and wet weather

130

days by fitting to a general linear model ANOVA in Minitab 18 (State College, PA, USA). 6 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Page 7 of 20

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

131

Multiple pairwise comparisons were corrected for using Bonferroni 95% confidence

132

intervals. For comparisons between data generated with ddPCR and qPCR, individual

133

filter values for ddPCR were plotted against the corresponding average filter value as

134

measured with qPCR. Both ddPCR and qPCR were plotted with the error bars

135

representing the 95% confidence intervals. The 95% confidence intervals for ddPCR

136

data came from the Poisson distributions reported by QuantaSoft version 1.7. Linear

137

regression was performed in GraphPad Prism 7 to calculate best fit lines of the data

138

along with root mean square error (RMSE) values. This analysis is similar to previous

139

comparisons between qPCR and ddPCR.27, 28 Rainfall is reported as the total amount of

140

precipitation recorded in the 24 hrs before sampling. A sampling day was considered a

141

wet weather sampling event if precipitation totaled at least 0.25 mm within the past 24

142

hrs.

143 144

Results and Discussion

145

CrAssphage and ARG occurrence during the study period and correlation with pollution

146

events

147

The primary goal of the present study was to assess the correlation of crAssphage and

148

ARG abundance in a sewage-impacted urban waterway to determine the utility of a

149

crAssphage-based marker to indicate ARG abundance. The sampling location was

150

immediately downstream of a combined sewer overflow (CSO) outfall. CSO events

151

occur during wet weather when combined sanitary and storm water sewers receive an

152

excess flow that must be discharged. In order to discern the effect of CSO events, the

153

rainfall during the 30-day study period was tracked. In total, it rained 12 days, with 8 of

7 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

154

those days reporting active CSOs. Total rainfall ranged from 0.51 mm to 25.65 mm of

155

rain in a 24-hr period.

156

Page 8 of 20

Selected ARG concentrations were evaluated for each of 30 sampling days

157

throughout the study to understand how rain events impacted their concentrations at the

158

study location. Observed ranges of gene concentrations as quantified by ddPCR (per

159

100 mL of sampled stream water) were 3.3-5.7 log10 copies sul1, 3.9-6.6 log10 copies

160

sul2, 2.5-4.7 log10 copies tetO, 2.9-4.9 log10 copies tetW, 3.0-5.2 log10 copies ermF, 3.8-

161

6.5 log10 copies intI1, and 3.0-5.2 log10 copies CPQ_056. Results for ARG copy number

162

per volume are shown in Figure 1 along with plots of the daily rainfall throughout the

163

study.

8 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Page 9 of 20

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171

Figure 1: Copy number (as measured by ddPCR) of ARGs normalized by volume along with daily rainfall during the sampling period. Rainfall is presented as the amount of rain that fell within the 24-hr period before that day’s sampling. Reported CSO events are distinguished by red asterisks. An open symbol on each graph represents an additional sampling time point (day 25) during an active CSO event. Data points represent averages of duplicate filters for each sampling time point and error bars represent standard deviations.

172

9 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

173

The data were fit to an ANOVA general linear model analysis correcting for

174

multiple comparisons with Bonferroni confidence intervals to compare total ARG and

175

crAssphage copy number per volume of sampled water between dry and wet weather

176

days. All molecular targets (ARGs and crAssphage) had significantly (p < 0.05) higher

177

concentrations on wet weather days compared to dry weather days. No significant

178

difference was observed between wet weather days with or without a correlating CSO

179

event.

180

Page 10 of 20

This study evaluated levels of ARGs in an urban stream that receives human

181

fecal pollution through combined sewer overflows during heavy rainfall. It has been

182

reported previously that the sampled stream receives persistent human fecal

183

contamination through leaking sanitary sewer lines in addition to CSOs.12, 20, 29 The study

184

site was highly contaminated, exhibited by the observed concentrations of ARG genes

185

on the same order of magnitude as previously observed in municipal wastewater.30 Also,

186

no significant difference was observed between rain events associated with a reported

187

CSO versus no reported CSO. It is possible that any amount of rain causes introduction

188

of fecal contamination from nearby leaking sanitary sewers to enter the stream. Also, a

189

CSO event may not have been reported even though a CSO event may have occurred

190

at our sampling location. The absolute abundance of sulfonamide resistance genes was

191

an order of magnitude higher than macrolide and tetracycline genes, agreeing with

192

published studies demonstrating the predominance of sulfonamide resistance genes in

193

wastewater.5, 30

194 195

Correlation of antibiotic resistance genes and fecal indicators

10 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Page 11 of 20

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

196

Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients were calculated between each pair of ARGs

197

and crAssphage as measured by ddPCR (Figure 2, Table S3). In addition, correlation

198

coefficients were calculated using previously published data of culturable indicators (E.

199

coli, enterococci, and somatic coliphage) and qPCR markers of water quality (CPQ_056,

200

CPQ_064, HF183, and Human Polyomavirus).12 All Spearman correlation coefficients

201

showed statistical significance based on corrected p-values using the Holm-Bonferroni

202

method with an overall p-value of 0.05 (pairwise p-values shown in Table S4). All

203

correlation coefficients were positive. ARGs (except for intI1) and crAssphage as

204

measured by ddPCR were very strongly correlated with each other. In addition, the

205

bacterial markers of water quality (E. coli, enterococci, and HF183) strongly correlated

206

with the ARGs. Interestingly, the marker CPQ_056 correlated very strongly with ARGs

207

when it was measured with the same platform as the ARGs (i.e., ddPCR); in contrast,

208

lower correlations were observed when CPQ_056 was measured with qPCR.

11 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

Page 12 of 20

209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222

Figure 2: Heat map of Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients matrix for ARG and crAssphage (denoted as CPQ_056_dd) concentrations as measured by ddPCR. Previous sample analysis from culturable indicators and qPCR markers are also included: culturable E. coli, culturable enterococci, somatic coliphage (SC), CPQ_056, CPQ_064, HF183 (Bacteroides qPCR marker), and human polyomavirus (HPyV).12 The correlations between these markers were not included in this figure as these correlations have previously been published12. Coefficients are colored based on the following scale of the absolute value of the coefficients: weak correlation (0.2 to 0.39), moderate correlation (0.4 to 0.59), strong correlation (0.6 to 0.79), and very strong correlation (0.8 to 1). Values of correlation coefficients and pairwise p-values are provided in Tables S3 and S4, respectively.

223

This study demonstrated the correlation of various ARGs with commonly used fecal

224

pollution indicators. The bacterial based markers (culturable E. coli, culturable 12 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Page 13 of 20

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

225

enterococci, and HF183 qPCR assay) correlated very strongly with all ARGs. Based on

226

the results of this study, the bacterial based markers could be an indicator of ARG

227

presence in environmental waters due to human fecal pollution. However, the study site

228

is heavily polluted by human sewage, likely leading to these strong correlations. E. coli

229

and enterococci can grow and persist in environmental waters and sediments and thus

230

are not inherently correlated with recent human fecal contamination.31-34 Further

231

research is necessary to investigate if culturable fecal indicators correlate with ARG

232

presence due to human fecal pollution in more pristine waters, where fecal bacteria may

233

originate from multiple different sources. Due to different properties of various fecal

234

indicators (e.g. different abundances of indicators and varying specificities to human

235

sources), it is suggested that environmental waters are monitored using a toolbox

236

approach, where many indicators of water quality are measured concurrently. It is

237

important to monitor for a variety of parameters, as both bacteria and viruses are

238

important to different aspects of water quality. For example, bacteria harbor resistance

239

genes that they can spread through horizontal gene transfer, while bacteriophages can

240

also contribute to the spread of resistance genes through transduction. Therefore, an

241

environmental water quality monitoring toolkit should include diverse targets, e.g., a

242

bacterial and viral target, and potentially other relevant markers to encompass the

243

diverse potential sources of fecal contamination and disease-causing microorganisms.

244 245

Comparison of crAssphage quantification by ddPCR and qPCR

246

CrAssphage was measured using ddPCR in the current study. ddPCR is an emerging

247

water quality monitoring technology that is suggested to allow improved estimation of

248

low copy number genes with less inhibition due to environmental sample matrix.35 13 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

Page 14 of 20

249

ddPCR also does not require standard curve generation, which is a potential source of

250

inaccuracy or bias in studies employing qPCR-based approaches. However, ddPCR

251

also has a lower dynamic range of quantification than qPCR, requiring high

252

concentration samples to be diluted to be read accurately36. The same DNA samples

253

were previously used to measure crAssphage abundance as qPCR assays.12

254

Descriptions of the qPCR assay performance metrics have previously been published.10,

255

12

256

of crAssphage measured by qPCR (CPQ_056 and CPQ_064) was plotted against the

257

concentration measured by ddPCR (as CPQ_056) for each time point along with the

258

respective 95% confidence intervals (Figure 3). The data was fit to two linear regression

259

models, which exhibited similar slopes and intercepts but with different goodness of fit.

260

Based on the same scale used to measure Spearman correlation coefficients, CPQ_064

261

exhibited a strong correlation with the ddPCR data (R2 = 0.57) while CPQ_056 exhibited

262

a moderate correlation (R2 = 0.27). In addition, the root mean square error (RMSE) is

263

0.30 log10 copies for CPQ_064 and 0.53 log10 copies for CPQ_056. The two trendlines

264

have similar slopes (0.79 and 0.75 for CPQ_064 and CPQ_056, respectively), showing

265

that for the same samples, a wider concentration range was observed using ddPCR than

266

qPCR. Moreover, the crAssphage concentration measured by qPCR was higher than the

267

concentration measured with ddPCR as interpreted from the y-intercept of the linear

268

regression lines (yintercept = 1.7 log10 copies for both lines). On average, qPCR resulted in

269

a six times higher concentration for the CPQ_056 assay and 8 times higher

270

concentration for the CPQ_064 assay. We note that previous studies found a higher

271

concordance between ddPCR and qPCR than observed here,27, 28 and that further

In order to understand the differences between these two platforms, the concentration

14 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Page 15 of 20

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

272

research is necessary to elucidate the differences observed between ddPCR and qPCR

273

quantification in environmental matrices.

274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281

Figure 3. CPQ_056 and CPQ_064 concentration measured by qPCR plotted against the CPQ_056 concentration measured by ddPCR. ddPCR concentrations are plotted separately for each of duplicate filters with 95% confidence intervals. The separate ddPCR filter concentrations are paired with the corresponding qPCR concentrations plotted as averages of triplicate values measured for each filter along with 95% confidence intervals.

282

Interestingly, CPQ_056 abundance correlated very strongly with ARG abundance

283

when both were measured using ddPCR (rSpearman = 0.84-0.89), in contrast with lower

284

correlation when CPQ_056 was measured with qPCR (rSpearman = 0.40-0.53). It has 15 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

Page 16 of 20

285

previously been shown that qPCR can overestimate or underestimate gene copy

286

numbers, possibly due to the reliance on a standard curve. Proper qPCR standard

287

generation and monitoring of performance metrics reduces negative effects of the

288

standard; however, the potential for error still exists, such as the assumption that the

289

standard curve amplifies DNA with the same efficiency as environmental samples.27, 35

290

Likewise, ddPCR can underestimate concentrations due to variance in droplet size,

291

causing multiple gene copies to occupy the same droplet.36 These results emphasize the

292

importance of standardized protocols to enable quantitative comparisons between study

293

targets. In addition, these results highlight potential pitfalls around cross-study

294

quantitative comparisons, especially when differing molecular quantification approaches

295

are employed.

296 297

Implications and future research

298

The study goal was to assess the co-occurrence of crAssphage with ARG presence in a

299

sewage-impacted urban stream. CrAssphage abundance significantly correlated with

300

various ARGs representing a range of resistance mechanisms, natural versus synthetic

301

origin, and time since antibiotic introduction into the medical field. These results suggest

302

that crAssphage could potentially be used to predict ARG presence in waters impacted

303

by human fecal pollution. Additional studies are necessary to establish the association of

304

crAssphage with ARGs in more pristine waters as well as water bodies impacted by

305

other fecal pollution sources (e.g., agriculture). While more research should be

306

conducted in additional water systems to further elucidate the range of correlation

307

between crAssphage and ARG abundance, the correlations explored in this paper

308

broaden the range of potential applications for crAssphage-based assays. This study 16 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Page 17 of 20

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

309

also demonstrates the importance of method standardization (i.e., using the same

310

instrumentation and protocols) and cautions against quantitative comparison of

311

molecular fecal pollution indicators measured by different technologies. Further research

312

is necessary in order to discern if there is one platform that is superior. In addition,

313

further validation of ddPCR is necessary for ARG detection, as the majority of studies to

314

date have been conducted using qPCR, confounding comparisons between studies. The

315

continuing rise of antibiotic resistance in the environment will require constant vigilance.

316

This study suggests a single fecal pollution indicator organism, crAssphage, correlates

317

with various diverse ARGs with the potential to inform and improve monitoring efforts.

318 319

SUPPORTING INFORMATION

320

Supporting Information. Additional methods, data values, and p-values of Spearman’s

321

rank correlation coefficients.

322 323

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

324

The authors declare the following competing financial interest(s): The primers reported in

325

the manuscript are the subject of a patent application entitled “Cross-Assembly Phage

326

DNA Sequences, Primers and Probes for PCR-based Identification of Human Fecal

327

Pollution Sources” (Application Number: 62/386,532). Universities and non-profit

328

researchers interested in using this technology must obtain a research license from the

329

USEPA.

330

from [email protected]. The authors declare no other conflict of interest.

To apply for a research license, please request additional information

331 332

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 17 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

Page 18 of 20

333

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation

334

Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. 1747452 and NSF Grant No.

335

1510925. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this

336

material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the

337

National Science Foundation.

338 339

REFERENCES

340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370

1. O’Neill Tackling Drug-resistant infections globally: final report and recommendations; 2016. 2. LaPara, T. M.; Burch, T. R.; McNamara, P. J.; Tan, D. T.; Yan, M.; Eichmiller, J. J., Tertiarytreated municipal wastewater is a significant point source of antibiotic resistance genes into Duluth-Superior Harbor. Environmental science & technology 2011, 45, (22), 9543-9549. 3. Zhang, Y.; Marrs, C. F.; Simon, C.; Xi, C., Wastewater treatment contributes to selective increase of antibiotic resistance among Acinetobacter spp. Science of the Total Environment 2009, 407, (12), 3702-3706. 4. Ma, L.; Zhang, X.-X.; Zhao, F.; Wu, B.; Cheng, S.; Yang, L., Sewage treatment plant serves as a hot-spot reservoir of integrons and gene cassettes. Journal of environmental biology 2013, 34, (2 suppl), 391. 5. Mao, D.; Yu, S.; Rysz, M.; Luo, Y.; Yang, F.; Li, F.; Hou, J.; Mu, Q.; Alvarez, P., Prevalence and proliferation of antibiotic resistance genes in two municipal wastewater treatment plants. Water research 2015, 85, 458-466. 6. Rizzo, L.; Manaia, C.; Merlin, C.; Schwartz, T.; Dagot, C.; Ploy, M.; Michael, I.; FattaKassinos, D., Urban wastewater treatment plants as hotspots for antibiotic resistant bacteria and genes spread into the environment: a review. Science of the total environment 2013, 447, 345-360. 7. von Wintersdorff, C. J.; Penders, J.; van Niekerk, J. M.; Mills, N. D.; Majumder, S.; van Alphen, L. B.; Savelkoul, P. H.; Wolffs, P. F., Dissemination of antimicrobial resistance in microbial ecosystems through horizontal gene transfer. Frontiers in microbiology 2016, 7, 173. 8. Jutkina, J.; Rutgersson, C.; Flach, C.-F.; Larsson, D. J., An assay for determining minimal concentrations of antibiotics that drive horizontal transfer of resistance. Science of the Total Environment 2016, 548, 131-138. 9. Karkman, A.; Pärnänen, K.; Larsson, D. J., Fecal pollution can explain antibiotic resistance gene abundances in anthropogenically impacted environments. Nature communications 2019, 10, (1), 80. 10. Stachler, E.; Kelty, C.; Sivaganesan, M.; Li, X.; Bibby, K.; Shanks, O. C., Quantitative CrAssphage PCR Assays for Human Fecal Pollution Measurement. Environmental Science & Technology 2017. 18 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Page 19 of 20

371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

11. Stachler, E.; Bibby, K., Metagenomic evaluation of the highly abundant human gut bacteriophage CrAssphage for source tracking of human fecal pollution. Environmental Science & Technology Letters 2014, 1, (10), 405-409. 12. Stachler, E.; Akyon, B.; Aquino de Carvalho, N.; Ference, C.; Bibby, K., Correlation of crAssphage-based qPCR markers with culturable and molecular indicators of human fecal pollution in an impacted urban watershed. Environmental science & technology 2018. 13. Edwards, R.; Vega, A.; Norman, H.; Ohaeri, M. C.; Levi, K.; Dinsdale, E.; Cinek, O.; Aziz, R.; McNair, K.; Barr, J., Global phylogeography and ancient evolution of the widespread human gut virus crAssphage. bioRxiv 2019, 527796. 14. Chopra, I.; Roberts, M., Tetracycline antibiotics: mode of action, applications, molecular biology, and epidemiology of bacterial resistance. Microbiology and molecular biology reviews 2001, 65, (2), 232-260. 15. Lacey, R., Mechanism of action of trimethoprim and sulphonamides: relevance to synergy in vivo. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 1979, 5, (Supplement_B), 75-83. 16. WHO Critically Important Antimicrobials for Human Medicine - 5th Revision; 2017. 17. Zhang, T.; Zhang, X.-X.; Ye, L., Plasmid metagenome reveals high levels of antibiotic resistance genes and mobile genetic elements in activated sludge. PloS one 2011, 6, (10), e26041. 18. Su, H.-C.; Ying, G.-G.; Tao, R.; Zhang, R.-Q.; Zhao, J.-L.; Liu, Y.-S., Class 1 and 2 integrons, sul resistance genes and antibiotic resistance in Escherichia coli isolated from Dongjiang River, South China. Environmental pollution 2012, 169, 42-49. 19. Gillings, M. R.; Gaze, W. H.; Pruden, A.; Smalla, K.; Tiedje, J. M.; Zhu, Y.-G., Using the class 1 integron-integrase gene as a proxy for anthropogenic pollution. The ISME journal 2015, 9, (6), 1269. 20. Divers, M. T.; Elliott, E. M.; Bain, D. J., Quantification of nitrate sources to an urban stream using dual nitrate isotopes. Environmental science & technology 2014, 48, (18), 1058010587. 21. McQuaig, S. M.; Scott, T. M.; Lukasik, J. O.; Paul, J. H.; Harwood, V. J., Quantification of human polyomaviruses JC virus and BK virus by TaqMan quantitative PCR and comparison to other water quality indicators in water and fecal samples. Applied and environmental microbiology 2009, 75, (11), 3379-3388. 22. Ahmed, W.; Harwood, V.; Gyawali, P.; Sidhu, J.; Toze, S., Comparison of concentration methods for quantitative detection of sewage-associated viral markers in environmental waters. Applied and environmental microbiology 2015, 81, (6), 2042-2049. 23. Pei, R.; Kim, S.-C.; Carlson, K. H.; Pruden, A., Effect of river landscape on the sediment concentrations of antibiotics and corresponding antibiotic resistance genes (ARG). Water research 2006, 40, (12), 2427-2435. 24. Aminov, R.; Garrigues-Jeanjean, N.; Mackie, R., Molecular ecology of tetracycline resistance: development and validation of primers for detection of tetracycline resistance genes encoding ribosomal protection proteins. Applied and environmental microbiology 2001, 67, (1), 22-32. 25. Chen, J.; Yu, Z.; Michel, F. C.; Wittum, T.; Morrison, M., Development and application of real-time PCR assays for quantification of erm genes conferring resistance to macrolideslincosamides-streptogramin B in livestock manure and manure management systems. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 2007, 73, (14), 4407-4416. 19 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447

Page 20 of 20

26. Hardwick, S. A.; Stokes, H.; Findlay, S.; Taylor, M.; Gillings, M. R., Quantification of class 1 integron abundance in natural environments using real-time quantitative PCR. FEMS microbiology letters 2008, 278, (2), 207-212. 27. Wang, D.; Yamahara, K. M.; Cao, Y.; Boehm, A. B., Absolute quantification of enterococcal 23S rRNA gene using digital PCR. Environmental science & technology 2016, 50, (7), 3399-3408. 28. Cao, Y.; Raith, M. R.; Griffith, J. F., Droplet digital PCR for simultaneous quantification of general and human-associated fecal indicators for water quality assessment. water research 2015, 70, 337-349. 29. Divers, M. T.; Elliott, E. M.; Bain, D. J., Constraining nitrogen inputs to urban streams from leaking sewers using inverse modeling: implications for dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) retention in urban environments. Environmental science & technology 2013, 47, (4), 1816-1823. 30. Chen, H.; Zhang, M., Occurrence and removal of antibiotic resistance genes in municipal wastewater and rural domestic sewage treatment systems in eastern China. Environment international 2013, 55, 9-14. 31. Ishii, S.; Ksoll, W. B.; Hicks, R. E.; Sadowsky, M. J., Presence and growth of naturalized Escherichia coli in temperate soils from Lake Superior watersheds. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 2006, 72, (1), 612-621. 32. Badgley, B. D.; Thomas, F. I.; Harwood, V. J., Quantifying environmental reservoirs of fecal indicator bacteria associated with sediment and submerged aquatic vegetation. Environmental microbiology 2011, 13, (4), 932-942. 33. Whitman, R. L.; Shively, D. A.; Pawlik, H.; Nevers, M. B.; Byappanahalli, M. N., Occurrence of Escherichia coli and enterococci in Cladophora (Chlorophyta) in nearshore water and beach sand of Lake Michigan. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 2003, 69, (8), 4714-4719. 34. Litton, R. M.; Ahn, J. H.; Sercu, B.; Holden, P. A.; Sedlak, D. L.; Grant, S. B., Evaluation of chemical, molecular, and traditional markers of fecal contamination in an effluent dominated urban stream. Environmental science & technology 2010, 44, (19), 7369-7375. 35. Cavé, L.; Brothier, E.; Abrouk, D.; Bouda, P. S.; Hien, E.; Nazaret, S., Efficiency and sensitivity of the digital droplet PCR for the quantification of antibiotic resistance genes in soils and organic residues. Applied microbiology and biotechnology 2016, 100, (24), 10597-10608. 36. Huggett, J. F.; Cowen, S.; Foy, C. A., Considerations for digital PCR as an accurate molecular diagnostic tool. Clinical chemistry 2015, 61, (1), 79-88.

448

20 ACS Paragon Plus Environment