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Updated: Apr 20, 2026

Evaluation of Antimicrobial Activities of Nanoparticles and Nanostructured Surfaces In Vitro
Published on: April 21, 2023
Joint antibacterial activity of soil-adsorbed antibiotics trimethoprim and sulfamethazine
Feng-Jiao Peng1, Guang-Guo Ying1, You-Sheng Liu1
1State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China.
Abstract:
Trimethoprim (TMP) and sulfamethazine (SMZ) are two antibiotics that are often administered in combination. We investigated the sorption and desorption behaviors of TMP and SMZ individually as single solute and in combination as co-solute in three representative soils, and evaluated joint antibacterial activity of the soil-adsorbed antibiotics to a reference strain Escherichia coli ATCC 25922. Comparative sorption tests showed that co-solute sorption of TMP and SMZ was not considerably different from their single sorption. Soil-adsorbed TMP was found to effectively inhibit the growth of E. coli at environmentally relevant concentrations in all three soils, and moreover co-presence of SMZ enhanced the antibacterial effects on bacteria both in its dissolved form and soil-adsorbed form. Overall, the results from this study suggest that various soil-adsorbed antibiotic residues could play a joint influencing role in soil bacterial community activity.
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