REVIEW ARTICLE
Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria in the Environment as Bio-Indicators of Pollution
James R. Paulson1, *, Ibrahim Y. Mahmoud2, Salma K. Al-Musharafi3, Saif N. Al-Bahry4
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2016Volume: 10
Issue: Suppl-2, M7
First Page: 342
Last Page: 351
Publisher ID: TOBIOTJ-10-342
DOI: 10.2174/1874070701610010342
Article History:
Received Date: 13/03/2016Revision Received Date: 02/05/2016
Acceptance Date: 27/06/2016
Electronic publication date: 11/11/2016
Collection year: 2016
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Antibiotic resistant and multiple-antibiotic resistant bacteria (MARB) have become increasingly widespread, primarily due to overuse of antibiotics in clinical therapeutics and in growth promotion for livestock. This undermines the usefulness of the drugs and presents a serious problem for human health. Compounding the problem, resistance determinants can spread between different bacteria via transfer of genetic material, so that the digestive tracts of farm animals, for example, have become breeding grounds for MARB. Antibiotics and resistant bacteria enter the environment in both treated and untreated sewage, via wastewater streams from hospitals and pharmaceutical plants, and through agricultural runoff from feedlots and fields fertilized with manure. This has led to contamination of groundwater, lakes, rivers and coastal sea water, and high levels of MARB in wildlife which indicates pollution of these habitats. Here we propose that the level of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in wildlife, for example sea turtles and fish, could be used as a bioindicator to monitor pollution and to evaluate the success of efforts to curtail it.