Microbiota Stability and Antibiotic Resistance in Wild Fish Over-Exposed to Filtered Wastewater treatment plant Effluents: an in situ caging experiment

Vollständiger Abstract

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Abstract Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), driven by use and misuse of antibiotics, has become a major global health threat. In high-income countries, urban rivers receiving treated effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) can be considered “hot-spot environments” that promote the dissemination of Antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) between humans and wildlife. Here, we assessed the role of wild fish in the dissemination of AMR in a highly urbanized river (Orge River, France), based on the One Health approach and an interdisciplinary research strategy. An in-situ caging experiment was performed to assess impact of over-exposure to filtered WWTP effluent, on AMR within microbiota of wild fish. After 7 and 20 days, ARGs content, bacterial diversity, and phenotypic profiles of antibiotic resistance of bacteria (ARB) of clinical interest, were analyzed in both gut and skin microbiota. This study shows that while multidrug-resistant Aeromonas and Pseudomonas could be isolated from wild fish, an overexposure to filtered WWTP effluent did not lead to an increase of ARB or ARG in fish microbiota, but altered the structure of skin microbiota, reducing Alphaproteobacteria and increasing clinically relevant Gammaproteobacteria .