Vadde Kiran Kumar, Al-Duroobi Haya, Phan Duc C, Jafarzadeh Arash, Moghadam Sina V, Matta Akanksha, Kapoor Vikram
School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Construction Management, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78249, United States.
Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78249, United States.
ACS ES T Water. 2022 May 16;2(11):2060-2069. doi: 10.1021/acsestwater.2c00054. eCollection 2022 Nov 11.
The purpose of this study was to conduct a correlative assessment of SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in wastewater with COVID-19 cases and a systematic evaluation of the effect of using different virus concentration methods and recovery and normalization approaches. We measured SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations at two different wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in the Bexar County of Texas from October 2020 to May 2021 (32 weeks) using reverse transcription droplet digital PCR (RT-ddPCR). We evaluated three different adsorption-extraction (AE) based virus concentration methods (acidification, addition of MgCl, or without any pretreatment) using bovine coronavirus (BCoV) as surrogate virus and observed that the direct AE method showed the highest mean recovery. COVID-19 cases were correlated significantly with SARS-CoV-2 N1 concentrations in Salitrillo (ρ = 0.75, < 0.001) and Martinez II (ρ = 0.68, < 0.001) WWTPs, but normalizing to a spiked recovery control (BCoV) or a fecal marker (HF183) reduced correlations for both treatment plants. The results generated in this 32-week monitoring study will enable researchers to prioritize the virus recovery method and subsequent correlation studies for wastewater surveillance.
本研究的目的是对废水中的SARS-CoV-2 RNA浓度与新冠肺炎病例进行相关性评估，并对使用不同病毒浓缩方法以及回收和标准化方法的效果进行系统评价。我们于2020年10月至2021年5月（32周）期间，在得克萨斯州贝克斯县的两个不同污水处理厂（WWTPs），使用逆转录液滴数字PCR（RT-ddPCR）测量了SARS-CoV-2 RNA浓度。我们以牛冠状病毒（BCoV）作为替代病毒，评估了三种基于吸附-提取（AE）的不同病毒浓缩方法（酸化、添加MgCl或不进行任何预处理），并观察到直接AE方法显示出最高的平均回收率。新冠肺炎病例与萨利特里洛污水处理厂（ρ = 0.75，< 0.001）和马丁内斯二号污水处理厂（ρ = 0.68，< 0.001）中的SARS-CoV-2 N1浓度显著相关，但将其标准化为加标回收对照（BCoV）或粪便标志物（HF183）会降低两个污水处理厂的相关性。这项为期32周的监测研究所得结果将使研究人员能够为废水监测确定病毒回收方法及后续相关性研究的优先次序。
