Unveiling community structure, antimicrobial resistance, and virulence factor of a wastewater sample of dairy farm located in mayurbhanj, odisha, India

Nutrient-rich dairy wastewater (DWW) is an excellent growing medium for microbes. Their antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes and pathogenic roles remain in the DWW and even multiply in environmental settings, in contrast to many chemical toxins that break down over time. Necessary steps and standardized techniques for tracking AMR in DWW samples are desperately needed. In this context, a DWW sample was evaluated to assess the necessity of remediation and develop a suitable treatment technique. Physicochemical characterizations of the sample showed an elevated level of pollutants like proteins, fats, and carbohydrates that led to the water pollution and microbial diversity (e.g., 36 phyla, 72 classes, 111 orders, 168 families, 275 genera, and 347 species). The Shannon and Simpson indices showed that the DWW sample had a high level of microbial diversity of a few species. The gene ontology (GO) analysis revealed the functional categories with 2795 genes belonging to 11 virulence categories. Most of the identified AMR genes belonged to beta-lactamase, and the majority of them were linked to Escherichia coli, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacter cloacae, etc. The major bacterial phyla carrying AMR genes included Firmicutes (36%), Proteobacteria (31%), Actinobacteria (21%), and Bacteroidetes (5%).