Behavior and stability of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) during chlorine disinfection

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) analysis is a cultivation-independent alternative method for the determination of bacterial viability in both chlorinated and non-chlorinated water. Here we investigated the behavior and stability of ATP during chlorination in detail. Different sodium hypochlorite doses (0-22.4 mg-Cl₂ L^-1; 5 min exposure) were applied to an Escherichia coli pure culture suspended in filtered river water. We observed decreasing intracellular ATP with increasing chlorine concentrations, but extracellular ATP concentrations only increased when the chlorine dose exceeded 0.35 mg L^-1. The release of ATP from chlorine-damaged bacteria coincided with severe membrane damage detected with flow cytometry (FCM). The stability of extracellular ATP was subsequently studied in different water matrixes, and we found that extracellular ATP was stable in sterile deionized water and also in chlorinated water until extremely high chlorine doses (≤11.2 mg-Cl₂ L^-1; 5 min exposure). In contrast, ATP decreased relatively slowly (k = 0.145 h^-1) in 0.1 μm filtered river water, presumably due to degradation by either extracellular enzymes or the fraction of bacteria that were able to pass through the filter. Extracellular ATP decreased considerably faster (k = 0.368 h^-1) during batch growth of a river water bacterial community. A series of growth potential tests showed that extracellular ATP molecules were utilized as a phosphorus source during bacteria proliferation. From the combined data we conclude that ATP released from bacteria at high chlorine doses could promote bacteria regrowth, contributing to biological instability in drinking water distribution systems.