How Wastewater Creates an Optimal Environment for Antibiotic Resistance to Flourish

A new study conducted by researchers at the Centre for Antibiotic Resistance Research (CARe) in Gothenburg, Sweden has found that wastewater provides a potent breeding ground for antibiotic resistance to evolve. The unique characteristics of wastewater allow resistance genes to grow against harmless bacteria to those that cause disease. The researchers presented evidence for where the genes could gain their ability to move in a study published in the journal Communications Biology. The species carrying the resistance genes in their chromosomes need to be present, along with the specific DNA sequences providing for their movement. The researchers analysed DNA from thousands of samples across different environments and found that all these key components came together not in the gut of humans or animals, but in wastewaters. Previous studies published by the same research team showed that the environment harboured a huge variety of different resistance genes, making it a vast source for these genes to jump between species, gaining more resistance. The authors said that polluting the environment with antibiotics is not a good idea and that attention should be paid to waste streams as this seems to be a place where new variants of antibiotic resistance could emerge.