Co-authors: @ulikluemper.bsky.social, Ana Alexandra Pereira, Luís Melo, Thomas Berendonk.
Great collaboration between University of Porto, @tudresden.bsky.social Institute of Hydrobiology as part of the #JPIAMR PRESAGE project.
5/5
Importantly, this approach:
🦠Works in real WW systems
🦠Does not enrich pathogens
🦠Suppresses plasmid transfer
🦠Remains effective upon reuse
Overall, it points toward a new, evolution-conscious framework for WW polishing, decoupling antimicrobial efficacy from AMR risk.
4/5
💡Main storyline:
We show that immobilising quaternary ammonium compounds onto particles creates a contact-restricted disinfection strategy that achieves strong microbial and ARG reduction (~5.5 log), while avoiding #AMR selection, co-selection, and #HGT.
3/5
Led by Marta Redondo and Alan Elena, this study tackles a key challenge in AMR mitigation: how to effectively disinfect wastewater without unintentionally selecting for resistance.
biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
2/5
🌊🦠Our latest work on water treatment now available as a @biorxivpreprint
🌊🦠
“Reusable immobilised quaternary ammonium particles reduce microbial and resistome burdens without promoting #AMR selection during wastewater post-treatment”
🔗 biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
1/5
Important implications for #OneHealth, WW management, and AMR risk assessment. Great collaboration between Institute of Hydrobiology at @tudresden.bsky.social
& Institute of Biological Research, Cluj-Napoca as part of the @biodiversa.eu ANTIVERSA project.
Exciting to see this out!
5/5
👉 Take-home: where and how wastewater is released matters. Low-flow environments may help reduce ARG persistence, while flowing systems can sustain and spread resistance.
4/5
🔑Key findings:
-Flow maintains ARGs, while static systems show consistent decline
-Dynamic systems support higher diversity
-Hydrodynamics can outweigh the effect of wastewater input alone
-ARG persistence is strongly shaped by physical conditions, not just contamination
3/5
Using controlled flume experiments, we compared static (lake-like) vs dynamic (river-like) conditions and tracked ARGs, MGEs, and microbial communities over time.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
2/5
Our new ANTIVERSA (@biodiversa.eu) study explores how water flow controls #AMR
Hydrodynamics shape antibiotic resistance in wastewater-impacted river biofilms
👩🔬A. Teban-Man, E.D. Erdem, T. Berendonk, U. Klümper, C. Coman & E. Szekeres
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
(in Microbial Ecology)
1/5
Interesting twist:
🦠This barrier effect mainly acts at the outer boundary of mature biofilms
🦠When donor & recipient cells grow in co-established biofilms, plasmid transfer remains high
Take-home:
🦠Biofilm structure and hydration strongly shape horizontal gene transfer
4/4
Key result:
🧫Biofilm EPS can act as a barrier to plasmid invasion.
🧫When water availability decreases, bacteria produce more EPS, which reduces plasmid transfer into biofilms.
🧫EPS-overproducing mutants showed the strongest suppression of plasmid invasion.
3/4
“Effect of biofilm lifestyle caused by water matric potential on invasion of exogenous plasmid.”
doi.org/10.1093/isme...
Thanks to Yijun Wang leading this study, with Arnaud Dechesne, Stéphanie Linnea Franck, Gang Wang and Barth F. Smets (@metlabau.bsky.social) as co-authors.
2/4
🥂 More than 10 years after completing my PhD, the final bit of unpublished work from that time has now contributed to a new paper published in @ISMEComms
. Happy to finally conclude the PhD part of my scientific journey 🥂
doi.org/10.1093/isme...
Read more below 🔽🔽🔽
1/4
New paper in Environmental Science & Technology 🧪
“Antibiotics or Heavy Metals in Livestock Wastewater: Which One Is the Main Driver for the Development and Spread of Antibiotic Resistance under Coexposure?”
Led by Jin Huang and Bing Li.
pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....
• ARGs were increasingly associated with mobilizable plasmids, integrons, and composite transposons, indicating elevated HGT potential.
• Microbial community restructuring under antibiotic stress was marked by Enterococcus dominance and resistome host shifts.
Key findings:
• Sulfonamide exposure selectively enriched sulfonamide resistance genes without broad co-selection of other ARG classes.
• Distinct temporal dynamics: short-term stress amplified sul2/sul3, whereas long-term exposure favored sul1.
🐷 💊 Happy to share our latest paper in Journal of Hazardous Materials 🐷 💊
“Impact of sulfonamides on microbial community and antibiotic resistome profiles in anaerobic digestion of swine wastewater.”
doi.org/10.1016/j.jh...
led by Qinmao 'Brook' Zhou and Bing Li
#AMR #microsky
📄 New paper out in Water Research:
Impact of human activities on groundwater biogeochemical cycles and microbial communities: Insights from metagenomic analysis
Led by @pennyhan.bsky.social & Zhengxing Chen
🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.wa...
Before leaving Dresden to increase my knowledge and independence as a researcher, I participated in a large-scale sampling campaign for the EMBARK project... some years later, this new and amazing study (which included these samples as well) came out!!!!!
Part of the JPIAMR SEARCHER project (antimicrobialresistance.eu) funded in Germany by the @BMFTR_bund
Why this matters:
Environmental resistomes are not just background noise. They contain functionally active genes with future clinical relevance. This work shows why functional discovery approaches are essential if AMR surveillance is to be proactive rather than reactive.
5/5
A personal highlight🍻: 3 of the newly identified resistance genes originated from a sampling campaign by Ioannis Kampouris and myself in Dresden, a nice reminder that my rare hands-on field sampling at human–environment interfaces can directly inform global #AMR risk assessment.
4/5
One gene (blaVEB-3) is mobile and already widespread in wastewater across multiple countries & several genes have closest homologs in known pathogens, highlighting realistic pathways by which environmental ARGs could mobilize into clinical bacteria in the future
3/5
Using functional metagenomics on environmental samples, we identified 4 yet unrecognized ARGs increasing cefiderocol MICs to clinically relevant levels. These include novel class A & D beta-lactamases (VEB-3, OXA-372-like, YbxI-like) & a truncated penicillin-binding protein
2/5
🧬 Our new paper in @ISMEJournal
"Cefiderocol resistance genes identified in environmental samples using functional metagenomics"
Led by Remi Gschwind and Etienne Ruppe as part of JPIAMR SEARCHER.
academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc...
#AMR #microsky
1/5
New paper accepted in Microbiome 🎉
Weiss A, Elena AX, Klümper U, Dumack K
We show that viruses and microeukaryotes strongly shape bacterial and ARG diversity in wastewater, highlighting the role of multi-trophic ecology.
doi.org/10.1186/s401...
#AMR #Microbiome #Wastewater #MicrobialEcology
👥 expertedly led by Jin Huang & Bing Li (Tsinghua University)
with Jingjia Zhang, @ulikluemper.bsky.social, @jianhuaguo.bsky.social, Thomas Berendonk, Ryo Honda, Hebin Liang, Lin Lin, & Xiaoyan Li
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
3/3
In this study, we show that environmentally relevant co-exposure to antibiotics and disinfection byproducts can substantially enhance antibiotic resistance risks at the microbial community level, with important implications for livestock wastewater management and #OneHealth risk assessment.
2/3