Degradation and elimination of various sulfonamides during anaerobic fermentation: a promising step on the way to sustainable pharmacy?

Antibiotics, most notably sulfonamides and tetracyclines, are frequently used veterinary pharmaceuticals in animal husbandry. A new field of application for animal manure is in biogas plants for generating environmentally friendly energy. As a result, antibiotics contained in manure may still reach the environment as fermentation residues are also used on agricultural fields as fertilizers. Therefore, in fermentation tests seven sulfonamides and trimethoprim were investigated regarding their elimination behavior during a five-week fermentation process. Sulfadiazine, sulfamerazine, sulfamethoxazole, sulfadimethoxine, and trimethoprim were nearly completely eliminated while sulfathiazole, sulfamethazine, and sulfamethoxypyridazine showed persistence. For sulfadiazine it was possible by means of mass spectrometry to identify and partly quantify a metabolite, emerging from a hydroxylation at the pyrimidine ring, 4-OH-sulfadiazine. Furthermore, a microbial inhibition test showed a substantial reduction in the antimicrobial activity of the metabolite compared to the parent compound. Thus, the fermentation process may be an efficientwayto reduce the load of selected veterinary antibiotics finding their way into the environment Degradable drugs such as sulfadiazine may therefore, at least in the aspect of residual antibiotic activity of metabolites, be considered as environmentally friendly drugs.