Community Composition and Antibiotic Resistance of Tap Water Bacteria Retained on Filtration Membranes

Abstract

Community composition and antibiotic resistance of tap water bacteria are still not known well enough. This study fills the gaps in knowledge regarding this matter. To provide representativeness of collected samples, tap water bacteria were concentrated from huge amounts of water, using filtration membranes monthly during the continuous, semi-annual study, covering winter and spring seasons. Biomass was investigated both using a culture-based method (for total and antibiotic-resistant culturable bacteria counts) and metagenomic DNA sequencing (for taxonomic identification of bacteria). The results showed that bacteria resistant to ceftazidime were the most prevalent among the studied resistance phenotypes, whereas bacteria resistant to amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, and tetracycline were scarce. On average, 20,059 and 26,200 CFU/mL per month was counted in the winter and spring season, respectively, whereas in terms of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, average counts were 14,270 and 9435 CFU/mL per month in the winter and spring season, respectively. In terms of bacterial community composition, Cyanobacteria, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria were the most abundant phyla, reaching up to 77.71%, 74.40% and 21.85%, respectively, which is supported by previous studies conducted on the same water supply network and other drinking water distribution systems across the world. No season-dependent variations were observed for culturable antibiotic-resistant bacteria or bacterial community composition. The prevalence of culturable antibiotic-resistant bacteria was not correlated with any of the identified taxa.

Keywords

• drinking water
• bacterial community composition
• antibiotic-resistant bacteria
• membrane filtration