Abstract
There is a need to conduct more research on the degradability of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in environmental waters for controlling water pollution and sustaining water system. In this study, we added tetracycline to 6 water samples, incubated the samples in the laboratory, and determined the degradation rates and bacterial growth in each sample for analysis of the growth of tetracycline-resistant or tetracycline-degrading bacteria and the mechanism of tetracycline degradation. The main conclusions obtained in this study can be summarized as follows: (1) The maximum degradation of tetracycline was in the Unoke River water samples with 60% degradation in the sample with the initial tetracycline concentration of 1 mg/L. (2) Not all bacteria growing in the water environment containing tetracycline were capable of degrading the antibiotic. (3) The ability of bacteria to degrade tetracycline in environmental water systems may be useful in microbial source tracking.
