Research article2022Peer reviewedOpen access
Assessment of two types of passive sampler for the efficient recovery of SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses from wastewater
Kevill, Jessica L.; Lambert-Slosarska, Kathryn; Pellett, Cameron; Woodhall, Nick; Richardson-O'Neill, India; Pantea, Igor; Alex-Sanders, Natasha; Farkas, Kata; Jones, Davey L.
Abstract
Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has proven to be a useful surveillance tool during the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, and has driven research into evaluating the most reliable and cost-effective techniques for obtaining a representative sample of wastewater. When liquid samples cannot be taken efficiently, passive sampling approaches have been used, however, insufficient data exists on their usefulness for multi-virus capture and recovery. In this study, we compared the virus-binding capacity of two passive samplers (cotton-based tampons and ion exchange filter papers) in two different water types (deionised water and wastewater). Here we focused on the capture ofwastewater-associated viruses including Influenza A and B (Flu-A & B), SARS-CoV-2, human adenovirus (AdV), norovirus GII (NoVGII), measles virus (MeV), peppermildmottle virus (PMMoV), the faecalmarker crAssphage and the process control virus Pseudomonas virus phi6. After deployment, we evaluated four different methods to recover viruses from the passive samplers namely, (i) phosphate buffered saline (PBS) elution followed by polyethylene glycol (PEG) precipitation, (ii) beef extract (BE) elution followed by PEG precipitation, (iii) no-elution into PEG precipitation, and (iv) direct extraction. We found that the tampon-based passive samplers had higher viral recoveries in comparison to the filter paper. Overall, the preferred viral recoverymethod fromthe tampon passive samplerswas the no-elution/PEG precipitationmethod. Furthermore, we evidenced that non-enveloped viruses had higher percent recoveries fromthe passive samplers than enveloped viruses. This is the first study of its kind to assess passive sampler and viral recoverymethods amongst a plethora of viruses commonly found in wastewater or used as a viral surrogate in wastewater studies.
Keywords
COVID-19 surveillance; Sewage sampling; Viral capture method; Public health risk; Environmental monitoring
Published in
Science of the Total Environment
2022, Volume: 838, number: Part 4, article number: 156580
UKÄ Subject classification
Microbiology
Diagnostic Biotechnology
Publication identifier
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.156580
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/118862