The removal of antibiotic resistant bacteria and genes and inhibition of the horizontal gene transfer by contrastive research on sulfidated nanoscale zerovalent iron activating peroxymonosulfate or peroxydisulfate.

Antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and the antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) dissemination via plasmid-mediated conjugation have attracted considerable attentions. In this research, sulfidated nanoscale zerovalent iron (S-nZVI)/peroxymonosulfate (PMS) and S-nZVI/peroxydisulfate (PDS) process were investigated to inactivate ARB (Escherichia coli DH5α with RP4 plasmid, Pseudomonas. HLS-6 contains sul1 and intI1 on genome DNA sequence). S-nZVI/PMS system showed higher efficiency than S-nZVI/PDS on ARB inactivation. Thus, the optimal condition 28 mg/L S-nZVI coupled with 153.7 mg/L (0.5 mM) PMS was applied to remove both intracellular ARGs (iARGs) and ARB. The oxidative damage of ARB cell was systemically studied by cell viability, intracellular Mg2+ levels, the changes of extracellular and internal structure, integrity of cell walls and membranes and enzymatic activities. S-nZVI/PMS effectively inactivated ARB (~7.32 log) within 15 min. These effects were greatly higher than those achieved individually. Moreover, removal efficiencies of iARGs sul1, intI1 and tetA were 1.52, 1.79 and 1.56 log, respectively. These results revealed that S-nZVI and PMS have a synergistic effect against ARB and iARGs. The regrowth assays illustrated that the ARB were effectively inactivated. By verifying the inhibitory impacts of S-nZVI/PMS treatment on conjugation transfer, this work highlights a promising alternative technique for inhibiting the horizontal gene transfer.