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Articles | Environmental Research and Planetary Health | Volume 2 - Issue 2 - 2026 | 123–135 | https://doi.org/10.53623/erph.v2i2.1327
© 2026 by the author(s), and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License

Biodegradation of Trimethoprim by a Bacterial Consortium Enriched from a Sewage Treatment Plant

Author(s): Tristan Nilsson 1 , Bliss Broussard 1 , Darcey Wayment 2 , Himanshu Raje 1 ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0640-2388 , Ramaraj Boopathy 1 , Achmad Syafiuddin 3 ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4310-7882
Author(s) information:
1 Department of Biological Sciences, Nicholls State University, Thibodaux, Louisiana 70310, United States
2 Department of Chemistry and Physical Sciences, Nicholls State University, Thibodaux, Louisiana 70310, United States
3 Center for Industrial and Environmental Health Studies, Universitas Indonesia, 12345 Depok, Indonesia

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Environmental Research and Planetary Health

Volume 2 - Issue 2 - 2026

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Antibiotic resistance is a persistent public health concern. The excessive use of prescription antibiotics in medical and animal husbandry practices has resulted in potentially harmful levels of antibiotic residues in the environment. Antibiotics released through excreta and industrial effluents exert selective pressure on environmental bacteria, promoting the proliferation and accumulation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Diverse microbial communities exhibiting antibiotic resistance may also serve as effective antibiotic degraders. Sewage treatment plants are among the environments most conducive to the development of microbial communities capable of degrading antibiotics. This study focused on Louisiana because it ranks among the five U.S. states with the highest antibiotic use. Trimethoprim (TMP) is one of the commonly prescribed antibiotics. The purpose of this study was to investigate the presence of TMP-degrading microbial communities in a small community sewage treatment plant. Sludge was collected from the anaerobic digester at the Thibodaux sewage treatment plant, and a microbial consortium was subsequently enriched. The consortium was cultivated with TMP under various growth conditions. TMP degradation was analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. The results showed that the consortium was capable of degrading TMP under co-metabolic conditions, with 4-desmethyl trimethoprim identified as a major metabolite. The dfrA12 and dfrA5 genes, which are associated with TMP resistance, were detected in DNA isolated from the consortium.

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SUBMITTED: 06 August 2026
ACCEPTED: 28 September 2026
PUBLISHED: 13 October 2026
SUBMITTED to ACCEPTED: 53 days
DOI: https://doi.org/10.53623/erph.v2i2.1327

Cite this article
Nilsson, T. ., Broussard, B. ., Wayment, D. ., Raje, H. ., Boopathy, R. ., & Syafiuddin, A. (2026). Biodegradation of Trimethoprim by a Bacterial Consortium Enriched from a Sewage Treatment Plant. Environmental Research and Planetary Health, 2(2), 123–135. https://doi.org/10.53623/erph.v2i2.1327
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