Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response, Office of Research and Developmen, Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA.
Jacobs Technology Inc., Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA.
Lett Appl Microbiol. 2023 Feb 16;76(2). doi: 10.1093/lambio/ovad005.
Bacillus anthracis and other environmentally persistent pathogens pose a significant threat to human and environmental health. If contamination is spread over a wide area (e.g. resulting from a bioterrorism or biowarfare incident), readily deployable and scalable sample collection methods will be necessary for rapidly developing and implementing effective remediation strategies. A recent surge in environmental (eDNA) sampling technologies could prove useful for quantifying the extent and levels of contamination from biological agents in environmental and drinking water. In this study, three commonly used membrane filtration materials (cellulose acetate, cellulose nitrate, and nylon) were evaluated for spore filtration efficiency, yielding recoveries from 17%-68% to 25%-117% for high and low titer samples, respectively, where cellulose nitrate filters generated the highest recoveries. A holding time test revealed no statistically significant differences between spore recoveries when analyzed at the specified timepoints, suggesting that eDNA filter sampling techniques can yield and maintain a relatively high recovery of spores for an extended period of time between filtration and analysis without a detrimental impact on spore recoveries. The results shown here indicate that emerging eDNA technologies could be leveraged for sampling following a wide-area contamination incident and for other microbiological water sampling applications.
炭疽杆菌和其他环境持久性病原体对人类和环境健康构成重大威胁。如果污染扩散到很大的区域（例如，生物恐怖主义或生物战争事件导致的），则需要易于部署和可扩展的样本采集方法，以便快速制定和实施有效的补救策略。最近，环境（eDNA）采样技术的发展可能有助于量化生物制剂在环境和饮用水中的污染程度和水平。在这项研究中，评估了三种常用的膜过滤材料（醋酸纤维素、硝酸纤维素和尼龙）的孢子过滤效率，对于高浓度和低浓度的样本，其回收率分别为 17%-68%至 25%-117%，其中硝酸纤维素过滤器的回收率最高。持留时间测试表明，在所指定的时间点分析时，孢子回收率之间没有统计学上的显著差异，这表明 eDNA 过滤采样技术可以在过滤和分析之间的较长时间内保持相对较高的孢子回收率，而不会对孢子回收率产生不利影响。这里显示的结果表明，新兴的 eDNA 技术可以用于大面积污染事件后的采样，以及其他微生物水采样应用。
