Environmental Surveillance of Flood Control Infrastructure Impacted by Unsheltered Individuals Leads to the Detection of SARS-CoV-2 and Novel Mutations in the Spike Gene.

In the United States, the growing number of people experiencing homelessness has become a socioeconomic crisis with public health ramifications, recently exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. We hypothesized that the environmental surveillance of flood control infrastructure may be an effective approach to understand the prevalence of infectious disease. From December 2021 through July 2022, we tested for SARS-CoV-2 RNA from two flood control channels known to be impacted by unsheltered individuals residing in upstream tunnels.

Detection of the Omicron BA.1 Variant of SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater From a Las Vegas Tourist Area.

Importance: Interpretation of wastewater surveillance data is potentially confounded in communities with mobile populations, so it is important to account for this issue when conducting wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE).

Objectives: To leverage spatial and temporal differences in wastewater whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data to quantify relative SARS-CoV-2 contributions from visitors to southern Nevada.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cross-sectional wastewater surveillance study was performed during the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020 to February 2022) and included weekly influent wastewater samples that were analyzed by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction to quantify SARS-CoV-2 RNA and WGS for identification of variants of concern.

Community-Scale Wastewater Surveillance of during an Ongoing Outbreak in Southern Nevada.

is an opportunistic fungal pathogen and an emerging global public health threat, given its high mortality among infected individuals, antifungal resistance, and persistence in healthcare environments. This study explored the applicability of wastewater surveillance for in a metropolitan area with reported outbreaks across multiple healthcare facilities. Influent or primary effluent samples were collected over 10 weeks from seven sewersheds in Southern Nevada.

Identification of a rare SARS-CoV-2 XL hybrid variant in wastewater and the subsequent discovery of two infected individuals in Nevada.

The identification of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants can predict new patterns of COVID-19 community transmission and lead to the deployment of public health resources. However, increased access to at-home antigen tests and reduced free PCR tests have recently led to data gaps for the surveillance of evolving SARS-CoV-2 variants. To overcome such limitations, we asked whether wastewater surveillance could be leveraged to detect rare variants circulating in a community before local detection in human cases.

Urban monitoring of antimicrobial resistance during a COVID-19 surge through wastewater surveillance.

During the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, infected patients presented with symptoms similar to bacterial pneumonias and were treated with antibiotics before confirmation of a bacterial or fungal co-infection. We reasoned that wastewater surveillance could reveal potential relationships between reduced antimicrobial stewardship, specifically misprescribing antibiotics to treat viral infections, and the occurrence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in an urban community. Here, we analyzed microbial communities and AMR profiles in sewage samples from a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and a community shelter in Las Vegas, Nevada during a COVID-19 surge in December 2020.

Characterizing the chemical and microbial fingerprint of unsheltered homelessness in an urban watershed.

Unsheltered homelessness is rapidly becoming a critical issue in many cities worldwide. The worsening situation not only highlights the socioeconomic plight, but it also raises awareness of ancillary issues such as the potential implications for urban water quality. The objective of this study was to simultaneously leverage diverse source tracking tools to develop a chemical and microbial fingerprint describing the relative contribution of direct human inputs into Las Vegas' tributary washes.

Use of wastewater surveillance for early detection of Alpha and Epsilon SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and estimation of overall COVID-19 infection burden.

A decline in diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2 is expected to delay the tracking of COVID-19 variants of concern and interest in the United States. We hypothesize that wastewater surveillance programs provide an effective alternative for detecting emerging variants and assessing COVID-19 incidence, particularly when clinical surveillance is limited. Here, we analyzed SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater from eight locations across Southern Nevada between March 2020 and April 2021.

Pathogen Peak "Averaging" in Potable Reuse Systems: Lessons Learned from Wastewater Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2.

This study describes wastewater concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 at seven different sampling locations in Southern Nevada (ranging from 4.2 to 8.7 log gc/L) and highlights several key variables affecting those concentrations, including COVID-19 incidence, sample type, and service area population.

Early-pandemic wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Southern Nevada: Methodology, occurrence, and incidence/prevalence considerations.

The World Health Organization (WHO) classified COVID-19 as a global pandemic, with the situation ultimately requiring unprecedented measures to mitigate the effects on public health and the global economy. Although SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for COVID-19) is primarily respiratory in nature, multiple studies confirmed its genetic material could be detected in the feces of infected individuals, thereby highlighting sewage as a potential indicator of community incidence or prevalence. Numerous wastewater surveillance studies subsequently confirmed detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater and wastewater-associated solids/sludge.

Glucose triggers strong taxon-specific responses in microbial growth and activity: insights from DNA and RNA qSIP.

Growth of soil microorganisms is often described as carbon limited, and adding labile carbon to soil often results in a transient and large increase in respiration. In contrast, soil microbial biomass changes little, suggesting that growth and respiration are decoupled in response to a carbon pulse. Alternatively, measuring bulk responses of the entire community (total respiration and biomass) could mask ecologically important variation among taxa in response to the added carbon.

Antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli from retail poultry meat with different antibiotic use claims.

Background: We sought to determine if the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli differed across retail poultry products and among major production categories, including organic, "raised without antibiotics", and conventional.

Results: We collected all available brands of retail chicken and turkey-including conventional, "raised without antibiotic", and organic products-every two weeks from January to December 2012. In total, E.

Quantitative stable isotope probing with HO reveals that most bacterial taxa in soil synthesize new ribosomal RNA.

Most soil bacterial taxa are thought to be dormant, or inactive, yet the extent to which they synthetize new rRNA is poorly understood. We analyzed O composition of RNA extracted from soil incubated with HO and used quantitative stable isotope probing to characterize rRNA synthesis among microbial taxa. RNA was not fully labeled with O, peaking at a mean of 23.

Microbial rRNA Synthesis and Growth Compared through Quantitative Stable Isotope Probing with HO.

Growing bacteria have a high concentration of ribosomes to ensure sufficient protein synthesis, which is necessary for genome replication and cellular division. To elucidate whether metabolic activity of soil microorganisms is coupled with growth, we investigated the relationship between rRNA and DNA synthesis in a soil bacterial community using quantitative stable isotope probing (qSIP) with HO. Most soil bacterial taxa were metabolically active and grew, and there was no significant difference between the isotopic composition of DNA and RNA extracted from soil incubated with HO.