Survivability, Partitioning, and Recovery of Enveloped Viruses in Untreated Municipal Wastewater
Top Cited Papers
Open Access
- 25 April 2016
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Chemical Society (ACS) in Environmental Science & Technology
- Vol. 50 (10), 5077-5085
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b00876
Abstract
Many of the devastating pandemics and outbreaks of the 20th and 21st centuries have involved enveloped viruses, including influenza, HIV, SARS, MERS, and Ebola. However, little is known about the presence and fate of enveloped viruses in municipal wastewater. Here, we compared the survival and partitioning behavior of two model enveloped viruses (MHV and ϕ6) and two nonenveloped bacteriophages (MS2 and T3) in raw wastewater samples. We showed that MHV and ϕ6 remained infective on the time scale of days. Up to 26% of the two enveloped viruses adsorbed to the solid fraction of wastewater compared to 6% of the two nonenveloped viruses. Based on this partitioning behavior, we assessed and optimized methods for recovering enveloped viruses from wastewater. Our optimized ultrafiltration method resulted in mean recoveries (±SD) of 25.1% (±3.6%) and 18.2% (±9.5%) for the enveloped MHV and ϕ6, respectively, and mean recoveries of 55.6% (±16.7%) and 85.5% (±24.5%) for the nonenveloped MS2 and T3, respectively. A maximum of 3.7% of MHV and 2% of MS2 could be recovered from the solids. These results shed light on the environmental fate of an important group of viruses and the presented methods will enable future research on enveloped viruses in water environments.Keywords
Funding Information
- Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (1351188)
This publication has 51 references indexed in Scilit:
- Detection of human coronaviruses in simultaneously collected stool samples and nasopharyngeal swabs from hospitalized children with acute gastroenteritisVirology Journal, 2013
- Simultaneous investigation of influenza and enteric viruses in the stools of adult patients consulting in general practice for acute diarrheaVirology Journal, 2012
- Development and Validation of a Concentration Method for the Detection of Influenza A Viruses from Large Volumes of Surface WaterApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2011
- The influence of external factors on bacteriophages—reviewFolia Microbiologica, 2011
- Coronaviruses: Propagation, Quantification, Storage, and Construction of Recombinant Mouse Hepatitis VirusCurrent Protocols in Microbiology, 2011
- Human coronaviruses are uncommon in patients with gastrointestinal illnessJournal of Clinical Virology, 2010
- Quantitative PCR for Determining the Infectivity of Bacteriophage MS2 upon Inactivation by Heat, UV-B Radiation, and Singlet Oxygen: Advantages and Limitations of an Enzymatic Treatment To Reduce False-Positive ResultsApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2009
- Multistate Evaluation of an Ultrafiltration-Based Procedure for Simultaneous Recovery of Enteric Microbes in 100-Liter Tap Water SamplesApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2007
- Identification of a new human coronavirusNature Medicine, 2004
- ENVIRONMENTAL VIROLOGY: From Detection of Virus in Sewage and Water by Isolation to Identification by Molecular Biology—A Trip of Over 50 YearsAnnual Review of Microbiology, 1995