Antibiotic resistance in a mid-sized lake

Sources and fate of Antibiotic resistance in a mid-sized lake

This project is part of a larger effort, the ProDoc Project “Scientific concepts for the sustainable management of mid-sized lakes in the 21st century”, which aims at improving our understanding of the sources, fate, and risks of micropollutants in Lake Geneva. The largest freshwater reservoir in Western Europe, Lake Geneva exemplifies several key challenges for sustainable freshwater management during the next century. Increasing population will heighten drinking water demands and pressure on waste-water treatment. Micropollutants (e.g. drugs, antibiotics, detergents, solvents, and many others) in lakes and rivers are an important environmental and public health concern. Using Lake Geneva as a model system, the Research Module “Microbial resistance, exotoxicological impact, and risk assessment of micropollutants in a mid-sized lake” will focus on three central issues associated with the biological risks of micropollutants: Understanding the risks associated with antibiotic resistance (Microbial Ecology group, Eawag), improving ecotoxicological risk assessment tools for micropollutant mixtures acting on the complex species assemblages in the lake (Nathalie Chévre, UNIL), and assessing the impact of high pollutant concentrations on the composition and activity of microbes in lake sediments (John Poté, I. Forel/U. Geneva).

At the Microbial Ecology group at Eawag, we will study antibiotic resistance along the flowpath from hotspots (e.g. hospital sewage) through wastewater treatment plants and into the lake. The increase of antibiotic resistance in pathogens is a worldwide phenomenon and a grave public health issue. Little is known about the effect of antibiotics and resistant bacteria released into the wastewater stream and ultimately into natural aquatic ecosystems, or the possibility of spreading antibiotic resistance within natural populations. Antibiotic resistance will be studied with a state of the art combination of microbiological and culture-independent molecular tools. Chemical analysis of the actual concentrations of various antibiotics will complement the survey. To evaluate the potential of the lake as a reservoir for antibiotic resistance, we will combine data on the input of resistant bacteria with their transport, survival, and possible proliferation, and the mobility (horizontal gene transfer) of the antibiotic resistance genes themselves. This data will be used to couple the hydrological lake model that will be developed by other research modules in this ProDoc with a model that evaluates the fate of antibiotic resistant cells and genes in the Lake.

Funding

Swiss National Science Foundation, grant PDFMP2-123048/1

Collaboration

Nathalie Chévre (UNIL), John Poté (I. Forel/U. Geneva), Alfred Wüest (Eawag, Aquatic Physics group)

Publications and presentations

• High levels of multiresistant bacteria and resistance genes after waste water treatment and their dissemination into Lake Geneva, Switzerland.  Czekalski N., Egli A., Bürgmann H., (submitted to Frontiers in Microbiology)
• Antibiotic resistance as an emerging environmental contaminant. Bürgmann H., Czekalski N., Grossart H.-P,. Kisand V., Lupo A., Mania C.M., Popowska M., Schwartz T., Walsh F., Berendonk T.U., and COST Action TD0803 'Detecting evolutionary hot spots of antibiotic resistances in Europe'. Presentation: 4th Congress of European Microbiologists Geneva, Switzerland, June 26-30, 2011
• Multiresistant environmental bacteria isolated from a wastewater system in Lausanne, Switzerland. Czekalski N., Bürgmann H. Poster: 4th Congress of European Microbiologists (FEMS), Geneva, Switzerland, June 26-30, 2011
• Antibiotics resistance as an environmental contaminant in the wastewater treatment system of Lausanne, Switzerland. Bürgmann H. and Czekalski N., Poster: 11th Conference of Bacterial Genetics and Ecology (BAGECO), Corfu, Greece, May 29 – June 2, 2011
• Antibiotic-resistance profile of environmental bacteria isolated from a wastewater system in Lausanne, Switzerland. Czekalski N., Bürgmann H., Poster: 4th Swiss Microbial Ecology (SME) Meeting, Engelberg, Switzerland, February 2-4, 2011