Development of molecular methods to detect and control emerging drug-resistance pathogens

Abstract The introduction of wide range of antibiotics has decreased the consequences of infections caused by several pathogens. But the use and misuse of antibiotics have led to the evolution of microbes and acquisition of antibiotic-resistance genes (ARGs), thus creating a driving force for selection of resistance in environment. In horizontal gene transfer, plasmid-mediated conjugation is one of the methods used by bacterial species to transfer their ARGs. The plasmids carrying various ARGs in different bacterial species have been introduced and explained in this chapter with several examples. These ARGs carried by plasmids have to be detected by various techniques to understand the origin, diversity, and distribution of resistance genes in hospital wastewaters. This chapter explains the current and emerging molecular methods to evaluate the quality of water and assess the efficiency of microbial removal from wastewaters in wastewater treatment plants. Recent studies in the advances of PCR, microarray, and DNA hybridization are continuously increasing our perspective toward the development of simpler, more rapid and reliable methods for ARGs detection. These molecular tools to detect and characterize genes and mutations associated with antibiotic resistance have been discussed in detail along with few case studies. Various approaches have been used to control the increasing antibiotic resistance in environment such as techniques involving UV radiations, microwaves, and nanomaterials. These advanced methods have been described for controlling the antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains in hospital wastewaters. This chapter explains the techniques in detail which are being used in present or have potential to be used in future to detect or control emerging drug-resistance pathogens.