Municipal wastewater management is an important target area for reducing the spread of antibiotic resistance, especially given the parallel increasing need for water reuse. Anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) have the potential to play a key role in safely expanding non-potable wastewater reuse practices. In the present study, the effect of commencing treatment of municipal wastewater by an AnMBR was evaluated after an extended startup phase using only synthetic wastewater. Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) associated with sulfonamides, tetracyclines, and β-lactams were quantified, and effluent microbial community progression was analyzed. Results indicated that the AnMBR effluent inherently harbored all targeted ARGs prior to the introduction of real wastewater (10⁴–10⁹ copies/100 mL effluent). sul1, sul2, and intI1 genes were notably higher initially than other genes and markedly increased after the system was transitioned to municipal wastewater. Although potentially pathogenic bacteria made up over 20% relative abundance of the influent, AnMBR effluents showed a marginalization of these groups as their microbial communities more closely resembled the tightly bound layer of membrane biofilms. This work highlights the need for emerging treatment systems to be evaluated on a basis that incorporates the differentiation of system-associated ARGs and assesses their environmental transmission potential within the effluent communities.

市政废水管理是减少抗生素耐药性传播的一个重要目标领域，特别是考虑到对水回用的需求不断增加。厌氧膜生物反应器 (AnMBR) 有可能在安全扩展非饮用水废水再利用实践中发挥关键作用。在本研究中，在延长启动阶段后仅使用合成废水评估了 AnMBR 开始处理城市废水的效果。对与磺胺类药物、四环素类药物和β-内酰胺类药物相关的抗生素耐药基因 (ARGs)进行了量化，并分析了流出物微生物群落的进展。结果表明，在引入实际废水之前，AnMBR 流出物固有地含有所有目标 ARGs (10 ⁴ –10⁹份/100 mL 流出物）。sul1、sul2和intI1基因最初显着高于其他基因，并且在系统过渡到城市污水后显着增加。尽管潜在致病菌占进水相对丰度的 20% 以上，但 AnMBR 出水显示出这些群体的边缘化，因为它们的微生物群落更接近于膜生物膜的紧密结合层。这项工作强调了对新兴处理系统进行评估的必要性，该系统将与系统相关的 ARGs 的差异结合起来，并评估它们在污水社区内的环境传播潜力。