UV-BASED ADVANCED OXIDATION PROCESSES AND NANOSCALE ANTIMICROBIALS FOR ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE MITIGATION

Antibiotic resistance (AR) is an ongoing pandemic that is unnoticed by many. Predictably, the environment has been implicated in the widespread of AR in clinical settings. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are considered major sources for the release of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) into the environment. In this regard, effective wastewater treatment can serve as a barrier against the release of ARB and ARGs into the environment. Moreover, addressing AR threats involves eliminating the development of new resistant bacterial traits by developing alternative antimicrobials. This study presents advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) that utilize the strong oxidizing power of hydroxyl radical and sulphate radical as promising technologies for ARG degradation. Also, we presented antimicrobial nanoparticles (NPs) as alternatives to conventional antibiotics. The reaction kinetics study investigated the degradation of intracellular (i-) and extracellular (e-) plasmid-encoded tetA, ampR and sul1 ARGs using UV254, hydroxyl radical and sulphate radical UV-based AOP (UV254/H2O2 and UV254/S2O82-, respectively). The degradation of tetA, ampR and sul1 was quantified using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Culture-based horizontal gene transformation experiments were used to estimate the deactivation kinetics of pCR™2.1-TOPO AR plasmid. Furthermore, we investigated the antibacterial synergy of photosensitizer (PS)-AgNP conjugates using protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) as PS. The last objective assessed the use of nanoscale monocaprin (NMC) as a first line of defense antimicrobials against the entrance of intracellular pathogens like E. coli and SARS-CoV-2 using phi6 as a virus surrogate.