Biodegradation of sulfamethoxazole by microalgae-bacteria consortium in wastewater treatment plant effluents

Sulfamethoxazole (SMX) has been commonly detected in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents. SMX and other antibiotics can be considered as environmental contaminants of emerging concern. Due to their toxicity effects and their potential for the development of bacterial resistance their presence in aquatic compartment becomes a threat to human health. This study evaluated the bioremediation of SMX in WWTP effluents using a tertiary treatment composed by microalgae-bacteria consortium under low intensity artificial LED illumination, and also the assessment of sulfonamide resistance gene (sul1). The removal of SMX from WWTP effluents were 54.34 ± 2.35%, in which the microalgae-bacteria consortium improves the removal performance of SMX. The main process of SMX removal can be attributed to the symbiotic biodegradation by bacteria due to the increase of oxygen released by the microalgae photosynthetic process. Therefore, the microalgae-bacteria consortium used in this study, demonstrated to be a promising alternative for bioremediation of SMX, with potential for removal others contaminants from wastewater effluent. However, the residual SMX and the relative abundance of antibiotics resistance genes (ARG) found in this study suggest that SMX contributes to selective pressure for ARG maintenance and proliferation in WWTP effluent. Thus, further studies to removal ARG from WWTP effluent are needed.