Taxonomic profiling of bacteria and fungi in freshwater sewer receiving hospital wastewater

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Date
2021
Authors
Ogwugwa, V.H.
Oyetibo, G.O.
Amund, O.O.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
ronment with cumulative effect on its healthiness. Understanding the taxonomic profile of microorganisms in the impacted systems is required to establish taxa that are bio-indicators of toxicants, and provide possible taxa for mitigating ecotoxicity of the HWWs. Geochemistry, pollution status and ecotoxicity of heavy metals (HMs) in HWW-impacted sewer (LU) were assessed. The microbiome profiling was based on 16S rDNA and ITS of 18S rDNA metagenomes. The degree of HMs contamination exceeded 50 and HMs pollution load index of LU was severe (1,084), which consequently exerted severe risk (1,411,575 toxic response factors) with very high toxic responses of Co, Cu, Pb, and Cd. Eco-toxicological impact of the HMs on LU skewed microbiome towards Proteobacteria (43%), Actinobacteria (18%), and about 5% apiece for Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria, Plantomycetes, and Bacteroidetes. Likewise, the relative abundance of in LU inclined towards Ascomycota (59%), Basidiomycota (17%) and unclassified Eukarya_uc_p (16%). Exclusively found in LU sediments were 44,862 bacterial species and 42,881 fungi taxa, while 72,877 and 53,971 species of bacteria and fungi, respectively, were found missing. Extinction and emergence of bacteria and fungi taxa in LU were in response to HMs ecotoxicity and the need for natural attenuation processes respectively. The profiled taxa in LU may be plausible in bioremediation strategies of the impacted system, and in designing knowledge-based bioreactor system for the treatment of HWWs before discharge into the environment. 1.Introduction Wastewaters from hospitals like domestic wastewaters are effluents of large volume of water from different units and services of hospitals. The quantity and characteristics of the hospital wastewaters (HWWs) is proportional to the type of units and services in tandem with the economy and size of the facilities. For example, 400–1200 L wastewaters per bed were reportedly generated every day in developed countries, but far lesser volume of wastewaters was associated with developing countries (Kumari et al., 2020). HWWs generally contain biological agents (Smiech et al., 2020), biologically active organic micro-pollutants (Castillo Meza et al., 2020), drug metabolites (Ngigi et al., 2020), chemical disinfectants, X-ray contrast agents, halogenated solvents (Castillo Meza et al., 2020), and metals (Alam et al., 2020) that are of great importance to the receiving environments. The components of HWWs do originate from substances used for medical, laboratory and research
Description
Scholarly articles
Keywords
Heavy water , Pollution indexes , Hospital wastewater , Microbione , Ecotoxicity , Research Subject Categories::NATURAL SCIENCES
Citation
Ogwugwa, V.H. Oyetibo, G.O. Amund, O.O. (2021). Taxonomic profiling of bacteria and fungi in freshwater sewer receiving hospital wastewater.