Microbial Community Composition of Tap Water and Biofilms Treated with or without Copper–Silver Ionization

Copper–silver ionization (CSI) is an in-house water disinfection method primarily installed to eradicate Legionella bacteria from drinking water distribution systems (DWDS). Its effect on the abundance of culturable Legionella and Legionella infections has been documented in several studies. However...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental science & technology 2018-03, Vol.52 (6), p.3354-3364
Main Authors: Stüken, Anke, Haverkamp, Thomas H. A, Dirven, Hubert A. A. M, Gilfillan, Gregor D, Leithaug, Magnus, Lund, Vidar
Format: Article
Language:eng ; nor
Subjects:
Abundance
Bacteria
Biofilms
Clustering
Communities
Community composition
Copper
Disinfection
Drinking behavior
Drinking water
Ionization
Legionella
Microorganisms
Relative abundance
rRNA 16S
Warm water
Water analysis
Water distribution
Water distribution systems
Water engineering
Water sampling
Water treatment
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Summary:Copper–silver ionization (CSI) is an in-house water disinfection method primarily installed to eradicate Legionella bacteria from drinking water distribution systems (DWDS). Its effect on the abundance of culturable Legionella and Legionella infections has been documented in several studies. However, the effect of CSI on other bacteria in DWDS is largely unknown. To investigate these effects, we characterized drinking water and biofilm communities in a hospital using CSI, in a neighboring building without CSI, and in treated drinking water at the local water treatment plant. We used 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing and Legionella culturing. The sequencing results revealed three distinct water groups: (1) cold-water samples (no CSI), (2) warm-water samples at the research institute (no CSI), and (3) warm-water samples at the hospital (after CSI; ANOSIM, p < 0.001). Differences between the biofilm communities exposed and not exposed to CSI were less clear (ANOSIM, p = 0.022). No Legionella were cultured, but limited numbers of Legionella sequences were recovered from all 25 water samples (0.2–1.4% relative abundance). The clustering pattern indicated local selection of Legionella types (Kruskal–Wallis, p < 0.001). Furthermore, one unclassified Betaproteobacteria OTU was highly enriched in CSI-treated warm water samples at the hospital (Kruskal–Wallis, p < 0.001).
ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.7b05963