Heterogeneous asymmetric recombinase polymerase amplification (haRPA) for rapid hygiene control of large-volume water samples.

Hygiene of drinking water is periodically controlled by cultivation and enumeration of indicator bacteria. Rapid and comprehensive measurements of emerging pathogens are of increasing interest to improve drinking water safety. In this study, the feasibility to detect bacteriophage PhiX174 as a potential indicator for virus contamination in large volumes of water is demonstrated. Three consecutive concentration methods (continuous ultrafiltration, monolithic adsorption filtration, and centrifugal ultrafiltration) were combined to concentrate phages stepwise from 1250 L drinking water into 1 mL. Heterogeneous asymmetric recombinase polymerase amplification (haRPA) is applied as rapid detection method. Field measurements were conducted to test the developed system for hygiene online monitoring under realistic conditions. We could show that this system allows the detection of artificial contaminations of bacteriophage PhiX174 in drinking water pipelines.

Evaluation of Methods for the Concentration and Extraction of Viruses from Sewage in the Context of Metagenomic Sequencing.

Viral sewage metagenomics is a novel field of study used for surveillance, epidemiological studies, and evaluation of waste water treatment efficiency. In raw sewage human waste is mixed with household, industrial and drainage water, and virus particles are, therefore, only found in low concentrations. This necessitates a step of sample concentration to allow for sensitive virus detection. Additionally, viruses harbor a large diversity of both surface and genome structures, which makes universal viral genomic extraction difficult. Current studies have tackled these challenges in many different ways employing a wide range of viral concentration and extraction procedures. However, there is limited knowledge of the efficacy and inherent biases associated with these methods in respect to viral sewage metagenomics, hampering the development of this field. By the use of next generation sequencing this study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of four commonly applied viral concentrations techniques (precipitation with polyethylene glycol, organic flocculation with skim milk, monolithic adsorption filtration and glass wool filtration) and extraction methods (Nucleospin RNA XS, QIAamp Viral RNA Mini Kit, NucliSENS® miniMAG®, or PowerViral® Environmental RNA/DNA Isolation Kit) to determine the viriome in a sewage sample. We found a significant influence of concentration and extraction protocols on the detected viriome. The viral richness was largest in samples extracted with QIAamp Viral RNA Mini Kit or PowerViral® Environmental RNA/DNA Isolation Kit. Highest viral specificity were found in samples concentrated by precipitation with polyethylene glycol or extracted with Nucleospin RNA XS. Detection of viral pathogens depended on the method used. These results contribute to the understanding of method associated biases, within the field of viral sewage metagenomics, making evaluation of the current literature easier and helping with the design of future studies.

Rapid quantification method for Legionella pneumophila in surface water.

World-wide legionellosis outbreaks caused by evaporative cooling systems have shown that there is a need for rapid screening methods for Legionella pneumophila in water. Antibody-based methods for the quantification of L. pneumophila are rapid, non-laborious, and relatively cheap but not sensitive enough for establishment as a screening method for surface and drinking water. Therefore, preconcentration methods have to be applied in advance to reach the needed sensitivity. In a basic test, monolithic adsorption filtration (MAF) was used as primary preconcentration method that adsorbs L. pneumophila with high efficiency. Ten-liter water samples were concentrated in 10 min and further reduced to 1 mL by centrifugal ultrafiltration (CeUF). The quantification of L. pneumophila strains belonging to the monoclonal subtype Bellingham was performed via flow-based chemiluminescence sandwich microarray immunoassays (CL-SMIA) in 36 min. The whole analysis process takes 90 min. A polyclonal antibody (pAb) against L. pneumophila serogroup 1-12 and a monoclonal antibody (mAb) against L. pneumophila SG 1 strain Bellingham were immobilized on a microarray chip. Without preconcentration, the detection limit was 4.0 × 10(3) and 2.8 × 10(3) CFU/mL determined by pAb and mAb 10/6, respectively. For samples processed by MAF-CeUF prior to SMIA detection, the limit of detection (LOD) could be decreased to 8.7 CFU/mL and 0.39 CFU/mL, respectively. A recovery of 99.8 ± 15.9% was achieved for concentrations between 1-1000 CFU/mL. The established combined analytical method is sensitive for rapid screening of surface and drinking water to allow fast hygiene control of L. pneumophila.

High performance concentration method for viruses in drinking water.

According to the risk assessment of the WHO, highly infectious pathogenic viruses like rotaviruses should not be present in large-volume drinking water samples of up to 90 m(3). On the other hand, quantification methods for viruses are only operable in small volumes, and presently no concentration procedure for processing such large volumes has been reported. Therefore, the aim of this study was to demonstrate a procedure for processing viruses in-line of a drinking water pipeline by ultrafiltration (UF) and consecutive further concentration by monolithic filtration (MF) and centrifugal ultrafiltration (CeUF) of viruses to a final 1-mL sample. For testing this concept, the model virus bacteriophage MS2 was spiked continuously in UF instrumentation. Tap water was processed in volumes between 32.4 m(3) (22 h) and 97.7 m(3) (72 h) continuously either in dead-end (DE) or cross-flow (CF) mode. Best results were found by DE-UF over 22 h. The concentration of MS2 was increased from 4.2×10(4) GU/mL (genomic units per milliliter) to 3.2×10(10) GU/mL and from 71 PFU/mL to 2×10(8) PFU/mL as determined by qRT-PCR and plaque assay, respectively.

Oligonucleotide microarray chip for the quantification of MS2, ΦX174, and adenoviruses on the multiplex analysis platform MCR 3.

Pathogenic viruses are emerging contaminants in water which should be analyzed for water safety to preserve public health. A strategy was developed to quantify RNA and DNA viruses in parallel on chemiluminescence flow-through oligonucleotide microarrays. In order to show the proof of principle, bacteriophage MS2, ΦX174, and the human pathogenic adenovirus type 2 (hAdV2) were analyzed in spiked tap water samples on the analysis platform MCR 3. The chemiluminescence microarray imaging unit was equipped with a Peltier heater for a controlled heating of the flow cell. The efficiency and selectivity of DNA hybridization could be increased resulting in higher signal intensities and lower cross-reactivities of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products from other viruses. The total analysis time for DNA/RNA extraction, cDNA synthesis for RNA viruses, polymerase chain reaction, single-strand separation, and oligonucleotide microarray analysis was performed in 4-4.5 h. The parallel quantification was possible in a concentration range of 9.6 × 10(5)-1.4 × 10(10) genomic units (GU)/mL for bacteriophage MS2, 1.4 × 10(5)-3.7 × 10(8) GU/mL for bacteriophage ΦX174, and 6.5 × 10(3)-1.2 × 10(5) for hAdV2, respectively, by using a measuring temperature of 40 °C. Detection limits could be calculated to 6.6 × 10(5) GU/mL for MS2, 5.3 × 10(3) GU/mL for ΦX174, and 1.5 × 10(2) GU/mL for hAdV2, respectively. Real samples of surface water and treated wastewater were tested. Generally, found concentrations of hAdV2, bacteriophage MS2, and ΦX174 were at the detection limit. Nevertheless, bacteriophages could be identified with similar results by means of quantitative PCR and oligonucleotide microarray analysis on the MCR 3.

A high-throughput 2D-analytical technique to obtain single protein parameters from complex cell lysates for in silico process development of ion exchange chromatography.

The accelerating growth of the market for biopharmaceutical proteins, the market entry of biosimilars and the growing interest in new, more complex molecules constantly pose new challenges for bioseparation process development. In the presented work we demonstrate the application of a multidimensional, analytical separation approach to obtain the relevant physicochemical parameters of single proteins in a complex mixture for in silico chromatographic process development. A complete cell lysate containing a low titre target protein was first fractionated by multiple linear salt gradient anion exchange chromatography (AEC) with varying gradient length. The collected fractions were subsequently analysed by high-throughput capillary gel electrophoresis (HT-CGE) after being desalted and concentrated. From the obtained data of the 2D-separation the retention-volumes and the concentration of the single proteins were determined. The retention-volumes of the single proteins were used to calculate the related steric-mass action model parameters. In a final evaluation experiment the received parameters were successfully applied to predict the retention behaviour of the single proteins in salt gradient AEC.