Projects and Grants per year
Grants and Contracts Details
Description
Antibiotic resistant bacteria are winning the war against humanity, adapting faster than we can create new
antibiotics, spreading farther, persisting longer in the environment, and becoming an expensive source of
endemic disease in the USA, and worldwide. Engineers may have unwittingly encouraged the adaptation of
pathogenic bacteria through extended contact with rich sludge microbiomes that contain multiple
antimicrobial resistance genes, mobile genetic elements, and bacteriophage vectors required for transport
between bacteria. Staphylococcus aureus (SA) has adapted to selective environmental pressures by acquiring
extra genes that have increased its virulence, conferred resistance to a wide range of antimicrobials, and
allowed SA to expand beyond its normal niche in the nose and throat of animals, into our rivers, beaches, and
oceans. SA passage through WWTPs is thought to have resulted in divergent stains of hardier and more
virulent pathogens, such as community-acquired, Methicillin-Resistant SA (CA-MRSA), which have
supplanted hospital-acquired Methicillin-Resistant SA (HA-MRSA) to become the dominant cause of
reported SA infections in the USA. Environmental persistence of SA has been documented in multiple media,
as well as a consistent presence of SA in wastewater influents and sludges. However, the presence of MRSA
may be overstated due to problems with co-culture of S. epidermidis (SE), a closely related organisms that
shares the antibiotic resistant protein of MRSA, causing a number of false positives with current clinical
methods for culture of SA. We have developed new media that suppresses the growth of SE, and allows for
the selective growth of SA from messy environmental samples. The overall objective of the proposed plan of
research is to investigate the presence, fate, and potential transport into watershed sediments of Methicillin
Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria in treated sewage effluent and receiving stream sediments
employing our newly developed, SE suppressive, SA enrichment and isolation method, followed by culture
typing of clones for penicillin binding protein and coagulase to determine which are MRSA. The MRSA
isolates will have their genetic material harvested in preparation for whole genome sequencing for typing and
virulence factors. This project seeks to provide insight into the prevalence of SA and MRSA, and genomic
content of MRSA, in the effluent from two, activated-sludge-based, wastewater treatment plants by collecting
large volume samples at the effluent and in the river sediment collecting in pools downstream of the effluent,
enriching SA in selective culture, isolating and identifying viable, clean MRSA clones, extracting the genetic
material from the isolate clones, and sequencing a few of their genomes for typing and virulence gene
comparison. It is expected that we will isolate MRSA from sewage effluent, and the sediments below the
effluent. What remains to be seen is if these isolates prove to have adaptations that allow them to persist and
spread further through our watershed environments.
Status | Finished |
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Effective start/end date | 6/18/18 → 9/30/19 |
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Projects
- 1 Finished
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104B State Water Resources Research Institute Program 2016 - 2021
Ormsbee, L. (PI), Atwood, D. (CoI), D'Angelo, E. (CoI), Erhardt, A. (CoI), Evans, S. (CoI), Ford, W. (CoI), Fox, J. (CoI), Parris, T. (CoI), Unrine, J. (CoI), Zhu, J. (CoI), Pennell, K. (Former PI), Agouridis, C. (Former CoI), Brion, G. (Former CoI), Cagle, L. (Former CoI), Edwards, D. (Former CoI), Fryar, A. (Former CoI), Lee, B. (Former CoI), Matocha, C. (Former CoI), Munshaw, G. (Former CoI), Price, S. (Former CoI), Salmeron Cortasa, M. (Former CoI), Wang, Y. (Former CoI), Wei, Y. (Former CoI), Wendroth, O. (Former CoI) & Yost, S. (Former CoI)
3/1/16 → 12/31/21
Project: Research project