Abstract
Although SARS-CoV-2 can cause severe illness and death, a percentage of the infected population is asymptomatic. This, along with other factors, such as insufficient diagnostic testing and underreporting due to self-testing, contributes to the silent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and highlights the importance of implementing additional surveillance tools. The fecal shedding of the virus from infected individuals enables its detection in community wastewater, and this has become a valuable public health tool worldwide as it allows the monitoring of the disease on a populational scale. Here, we monitored the presence of SARS-CoV-2 and its dynamic genomic changes in wastewater sampled from two metropolitan areas in Arkansas during major surges of COVID-19 cases and assessed how the viral titers in these samples related to the clinical case counts between late April 2020 and January 2022. The levels of SARS-CoV-2 RNA were quantified by reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) using a set of TaqMan assays targeting three different viral genes (encoding ORF1ab polyprotein, surface glycoprotein, and nucleocapsid phosphoprotein). An allele-specific RT-qPCR approach was used to screen the samples for SARS-CoV-2 mutations. The identity and genetic diversity of the virus were further investigated through amplicon-based RNA sequencing, and SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern were detected in wastewater samples throughout the duration of this study. Our data show how changes in the virus genome can affect the sensitivity of specific RT-qPCR assays used in COVID-19 testing with the surge of new variants. A significant association was observed between viral titers in wastewater and recorded number of COVID-19 cases in the areas studied, except when assays failed to detect targets due to the presence of particular variants. These findings support the use of wastewater surveillance as a reliable complementary tool for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 and its genetic variants at the community level.
Keywords: Arkansas; COVID-19; Coronavirus; SARS-CoV-2; Variants of concern; Wastewater.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, coronavirus, variants of concern, Wastewater., Arkansas, 【초록키워드】 public health, SARS-CoV-2 variant, diagnostic, virus, variants, Surface glycoprotein, sensitivity, RT-qPCR, wastewater, COVID-19 testing, Asymptomatic, Surveillance, nucleocapsid, RNA sequencing, Factors, death, Community, target, genetic diversity, SARS-CoV-2 RNA, Genetic variant, SARS-CoV-2 mutations, Quantitative, association, ORF1ab, fecal, RT-qPCR assay, complementary, Support, identity, COVID-19 case, infected individual, transmission of SARS-CoV-2, polyprotein, virus genome, viral titer, Affect, approach, TaqMan assay, highlight, polymerase chain, was used, detect, investigated, the disease, changes in, contribute, viral gene, recorded, silent, genomic change, quantified, 【제목키워드】 SARS-CoV-2 genome, Temporal,