Chronic impact of tetracycline on the biodegradation of an organic substrate mixture under anaerobic conditions

• Chronic impact of tetracycline was lethal at 8.5 mg/L on the microbial community.
• At lower doses, substrate removal was not impaired but biogas volume was reduced.
• Tetracycline was partially biodegraded.
• Impact was cumulative on fermenting heterotrophs due to TET adsorption/accumulation.
• Impact was reversible for methanogens with partial recovery of biogas generation.

The study evaluates the chronic impact of the antibiotic tetracycline on the biodegradation of organic substrate under anaerobic conditions. The experiments involved an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor fed with a synthetic substrate mixture including glucose, starch and volatile fatty acids, and operated in a sequence of different phases with gradually increasing tetracycline doses of 1.65–8.5 mg/L, for more than five months. Tetracycline exerted a terminal/lethal effect at 8.5 mg/L on the microbial community under anaerobic conditions, which caused the inhibition of substrate/COD utilization and biogas generation and leading to a total collapse of the reactor. The microbial activity could not be recovered and re-started within a period of more than 10 days, even after stopping tetracycline dosing. At lower doses, substrate utilization was not affected but a reduction of 10–20% was observed in the biogas/methane generation, suggesting that substrate utilization of tetracycline to the biomass was limiting their bioavailability. During the experiments, tetracycline was partially removed either through biodegradation or conversion into its by-products. The adverse long-term impact was quite variable for fermenting heterotrophic and methanogenic fractions of the microbial community based on changes inflicted on the composition of remaining/residual organic substrate.