Promise and Limitations of Integrated Metagenomics-Based Surveillance of Pathogens and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)

Dr. Amy Pruden, Distinguished Professor, Virginia Tech

Video Summary:

The talk discusses a presentation by Dr. Amy Pruden on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and its connection to wastewater treatment. Dr. Pruden, an environmental scientist, focuses on the role of water systems in managing pathogens and antibiotic resistance. She highlights the urgency of AMR, comparing its global death toll to the COVID-19 pandemic, and emphasizes the need for effective surveillance, particularly through wastewater-based monitoring.

Dr. Pruden details a study funded by the Water Research Foundation to monitor AMR in wastewater, highlighting the challenges of selecting appropriate monitoring targets. She explains different methods, including culture, qPCR, and metagenomic sequencing, with a focus on metagenomics for its comprehensive data on antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and mobile genetic elements like plasmids. The study found differences in AMR levels across countries, influenced by factors like prescription practices.

She also discusses how wastewater treatment plants can both reduce and disseminate AMR, and introduces tools like MetaCompare, which assesses metagenomic data to evaluate the risk of resistance spreading through treated water. Dr. Pruden concludes by stressing the importance of continuous monitoring and the development of better databases for tracking AMR in the environment.