Quantitative analysis of SARS-CoV-2 RNA from wastewater solids in communities with low COVID-19 incidence and prevalence

WATER RESEARCH

卷:188

Article

D'Aoust, Patrick M.¹  Mercier, Elisabeth³  Montpetit, Danika³  Jia, Jian-Jun¹  Alexandrov, Ilya⁴  Neault, Nafisa²  Baig, Aiman Tariq²  Mayne, Janice⁵  Zhang, Xu⁵  Alain, Tommy^2,5  Langlois, Marc-Andre⁵  Servos, Mark R.⁸  MacKenzie, Malcolm⁴  Figeys, Daniel^5,6,7  MacKenzie, Alex E.²  Graber, Tyson E.²  Delatolla, Robert¹ 

[1] Univ Ottawa, Dept Civil Engn, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada

[2] Eastern Ontario Res Inst, Childrens Hosp, Ottawa, ON K1H 8L1, Canada

[3] Univ Ottawa, Dept Chem Engn, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada

[4] ActivSignal LLC, 27 Strathmore Rd Natick, Natick, MA 01760 USA

[5] Univ Ottawa, Dept Biochem Microbiol & Immunol, Ottawa, ON K1H 8M5, Canada

[6] Univ Ottawa, Dept Chem & Biomol Sci, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada

[7] Canadian Inst Adv Res, Toronto, ON M5G 1M1, Canada

[8] Univ Waterloo, Dept Biol, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada

关键词: COVID-19;    SARS-CoV-2;    Wastewater;    Primary clarified sludge;    Solids;    Virus;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.watres.2020.116560

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

In the absence of an effective vaccine to prevent COVID-19 it is important to be able to track community infections to inform public health interventions aimed at reducing the spread and therefore reduce pressures on health-care, improve health outcomes and reduce economic uncertainty. Wastewater surveillance has rapidly emerged as a potential tool to effectively monitor community infections through measuring trends of RNA signal in wastewater systems. In this study SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA N1 and N2 gene regions are quantified in solids collected from influent post grit solids (PGS) and primary clarified sludge (PCS) in two water resource recovery facilities (WRRF) serving Canada's national capital region, i.e., the City of Ottawa, ON (pop. approximate to 1.1M) and the City of Gatineau, QC (pop. approximate to 280K). PCS samples show signal inhibition using RT-ddPCR compared to RT-qPCR, with PGS samples showing similar quantifiable concentrations of RNA using both assays. RT-qPCR shows higher frequency of detection of N1 and N2 gene regions in PCS (92.7, 90.6%, n = 6) as compared to PGS samples (79.2, 82.3%, n = 5). Sampling of PCS may therefore be an effective approach for SARS-CoV-2 viral quantification, especially during periods of declining and low COVID-19 incidence in the community. The pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV) is determined to have a less variable RNA signal in PCS over a three month period for two WRRFs, regardless of environmental conditions, compared to Bacteroides 16S rRNA or human 18S rRNA, making PMMoV a potentially useful biomarker for normalization of SARS-CoV-2 signal. PMMoV-normalized PCS RNA signal from WRRFs of two cities correlated with the regional public health epidemiological metrics, identifying PCS normalized to a fecal indicator (PMMoV) as a potentially effective tool for monitoring trends during decreasing and low-incidence of infection of SARS-Cov-2 in communities. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

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