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Abstract
The presence of antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), and in river and lake recipients show the need to develop new antibiotic removal strategies. The aminoglycoside antibiotic class is of special concern since the chemical structure of these compounds limits the choices of removal technologies. The experimental design included fungal mediated in vivo and in vitro experiments. The experiments were performed in Erlenmeyer flasks under non-sterile conditions. In the study, the role of the laccase redox mediator 4-hydroxy benzoic acid (HBA) in the removal of neomycin was investigated. The specific objective of the study was to conclude whether it is possible to use the white rot fungus (WRF) Trametes versicolor to biodegrade neomycin. It was shown that it is feasible to remove 34% neomycin in vitro (excluding living fungal cells) by laccase-HBA mediated extracellular biodegradation. In the in vivo experiments, polyurethane foam (PUF) was used as supporting material to immobilize fungal mycelia on. The presence of living fungal cells facilitated a removal of approximately 80% neomycin in the absence of HBA. Using liquid chromatography-high resolution-mass spectrometry, it was possible to tentatively identify oxidation products of neomycin hydrolysates. The results in this study open up the possibility to implement a pretreatment plant (PTP) aimed for neomycin removal.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Martina Degerman, MSc at Cytiva AB, Uppsala, Sweden, for her skillful technical assistance.
The authors are also grateful to Ivana Eichlerová, PhD at the Institute of Microbiology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague for supplying the T. versicolor.
Availability of data and materials
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author at reasonable request.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.