Wu Huiyun, Brighton Keegan, Chen Jiahao, Shuai Danmeng, Aw Tiong Gim
Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, 1440 Canal Street, Suite 2100, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA.
Food Environ Virol. 2025 Jan 15;17(1):19. doi: 10.1007/s12560-025-09634-6.
Viruses can interact with a broad range of inorganic and organic particles in water and wastewater. These associations can protect viruses from inactivation by quenching chemical disinfectants or blocking ultraviolet light transmission, and a much higher dosage of disinfectants is required to inactivate particle-associated viruses than free viruses. There have been only few studies of the association of viruses with particles in wastewater, particularly in secondary treated effluent. As secondary effluent is the source water to the reclaimed water treatment system, this study quantified indigenous enteric viruses, and viral indicators associated with particles in secondary effluents collected from five full-scale water reclamation facilities in the United States. Particle-associated viruses were enumerated using a sequential filtration followed by microfluidic digital PCR. This study showed that enteric viruses and viral indicators (crAssphage and pepper mild mottle virus, PMMoV) were attached to particles of different sizes in secondary effluent. Significantly higher concentrations of RNA viruses including PMMoV, norovirus, and enterovirus were detected in filtrate of the sequential filtration, which contained particles < 0.45 µm. DNA viruses including adenovirus and crAssphage were found to be more associated with larger particles in secondary effluent. Overall, high correlations were observed between viral indicators and enteric viruses, supporting the use of crAssphage and PMMoV to evaluate virus removal efficiency in water and wastewater treatment processes. The association of viruses with particles in wastewater has significant implications on wastewater treatment and disinfection processes as well as virus enumeration in wastewater.
病毒可与水和废水中的多种无机和有机颗粒相互作用。这些结合可通过淬灭化学消毒剂或阻挡紫外线传播来保护病毒不被灭活，与游离病毒相比，灭活与颗粒结合的病毒需要更高剂量的消毒剂。关于废水中病毒与颗粒结合的研究很少，特别是在二级处理后的出水方面。由于二级出水是再生水处理系统的水源，本研究对美国五个全规模水回收设施收集的二级出水中的本地肠道病毒以及与颗粒相关的病毒指标进行了量化。通过连续过滤后进行微流控数字PCR来计数与颗粒结合的病毒。本研究表明，肠道病毒和病毒指标（交叉噬菌体和辣椒轻斑驳病毒，PMMoV）附着在二级出水中不同大小的颗粒上。在连续过滤的滤液中检测到包括PMMoV、诺如病毒和肠道病毒在内的RNA病毒浓度显著更高，该滤液中含有小于0.45μm的颗粒。包括腺病毒和交叉噬菌体在内的DNA病毒被发现与二级出水中较大的颗粒更相关。总体而言，病毒指标与肠道病毒之间观察到高度相关性，支持使用交叉噬菌体和PMMoV来评估水和废水处理过程中的病毒去除效率。病毒与废水中颗粒的结合对废水处理和消毒过程以及废水中病毒计数具有重要意义。
