A comparison of precipitation and filtration-based SARS-CoV-2 recovery methods and the influence of temperature, turbidity, and surfactant load in urban wastewater

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has become a complimentary surveillance tool during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Viral concentration methods from wastewater are still being optimised and compared, whilst viral recovery under different wastewater characteristics and storage temperatures remains poorl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Science of the total environment 2022-02, Vol.808, p.151916-151916, Article 151916
Main Authors: Kevill, Jessica L., Pellett, Cameron, Farkas, Kata, Brown, Mathew R., Bassano, Irene, Denise, Hubert, McDonald, James E., Malham, Shelagh K., Porter, Jonathan, Warren, Jonathan, Evens, Nicholas P., Paterson, Steve, Singer, Andrew C., Jones, Davey L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
COVID-19
Faecal indicator virus
Humans
qRT-PCR
RNA detection
SARS-CoV-2
Surface-Active Agents
Temperature
Wastewater
Wastewater concentration
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Summary:Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has become a complimentary surveillance tool during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Viral concentration methods from wastewater are still being optimised and compared, whilst viral recovery under different wastewater characteristics and storage temperatures remains poorly understood. Using urban wastewater samples, we tested three viral concentration methods; polyethylene glycol precipitation (PEG), ammonium sulphate precipitation (AS), and CP select™ InnovaPrep® (IP) ultrafiltration. We found no major difference in SARS-CoV-2 and faecal indicator virus (crAssphage) recovery from wastewater samples (n = 46) using these methods, PEG slightly (albeit non-significantly), outperformed AS and IP for SARS-CoV-2 detection, as a higher genome copies per litre (gc/l) was recorded for a larger proportion of samples. Next generation sequencing of 8 paired samples revealed non-significant differences in the quality of data between AS and IP, though IP data quality was slightly better and less variable. A controlled experiment assessed the impact of wastewater suspended solids (turbidity; 0–400 NTU), surfactant load (0–200 mg/l), and storage temperature (5–20 °C) on viral recovery using the AS and IP methods. SARS-CoV-2 recoveries were >20% with AS and  0.05), whilst surfactant and storage temperature combined were significant negative correlates (p 
ISSN:0048-9697
1879-1026
1879-1026
DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151916