Collaborative Research: Plant-based Pathogen Filters

饮用水的病毒污染会导致疾病。尽管这种水传播疾病对公共卫生构成重大威胁，但目前适用于病毒去除的过滤技术具有高成本和能源需求。 这阻碍了它们的广泛使用，并导致需要更便宜和可持续的饮用水消毒替代品。该项目的目标是使用计算生物学工具来发现可以捕获病毒的植物肽，以创建低成本和节能的饮用水过滤器。将评估扩大规模的可能性，以了解常见水成分对病毒-蛋白质相互作用的影响，从而改善可持续和有效的过滤器操作。建立一个大型的植物肽数据库将广泛地为其他科学学科提供信息，并可通过互联网资源轻松访问，作为本项目的一部分。植物基水生物过滤器的成功开发将有一系列潜在的应用，包括更换老化的基础设施和用于救灾情况。更广泛地说，低成本过滤器具有通过改善清洁饮用水的获得来减少全球水传播疾病死亡的巨大潜力。人类肠道病毒污染的水是全球急性腹泻、住院和死亡的主要原因之一。通过过滤和其他水处理技术可以去除这些病毒。虽然过滤是饮用水处理中最广泛使用的技术之一，但近几十年来过滤技术的创新相对较少。该项目的目标是开发可持续的、可扩展的过滤器，其功能化有可持续的植物材料，称为抗菌肽（AMP）。为实现该项目目标而设计的具体目标侧重于了解基本的生物分子和物理化学相互作用，以：1）通过计算识别优先结合病毒衣壳蛋白的植物来源的AMP，以用于基于植物的病原体过滤器; 2）使用肠道病毒腺病毒2、轮状病毒OSU株和杜兰病毒的实验室去除测试来验证所选的AMP（人类诺如病毒的替代物）; 3）确定可针对一系列应用定制的现成底物和可行的过滤器配置;以及4）量化过滤器表面、病毒和水基质组分之间的相互作用和干扰，以实现现场规模的转化。这些研究目标的成功完成将导致一个数据驱动的框架的开发，用于创建和评估基于AMP的材料。此外，低成本效益的植物病原体过滤器有可能通过广泛采用该技术来减少世界范围内的水媒疾病。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Viral contamination of drinking water can cause disease. Although such waterborne diseases pose significant public health threats, current filtration technologies suitable for virus removal have high cost and energy requirements. This prevents their widespread use and has led to the need for less expensive and sustainable alternatives for disinfecting drinking water. The goal of this project is to use computational biology tools to discover plant-based peptides that can trap viruses to create low-cost and energy-efficient drinking water filters. The potential for scale up will be assessed to understand the impacts of common water constituents on virus-protein interactions to improve sustainable and effective filter operation. Creation of a large database of plant peptides will be broadly informative to other scientific disciplines and easily accessible via internet resource to be developed as part of this project. Successful development of plant-based water biofilters will have a range of potential applications including the replacement of aging infrastructure and use in disaster relief situations. More broadly, low cost filters have significant potential to decrease waterborne disease deaths worldwide through improved access to clean drinking water. Water contamination with human enteric viruses is one of the leading causes of acute diarrhea hospitalization and fatalities worldwide. Removal of these viruses can be achieved through filtration and other water treatment technologies. Although filtration has been one of the most widely used techniques for drinking water treatment, there has been comparatively little innovation in filtration in recent decades. The goal of this project is to develop sustainable, scalable filters functionalized with sustainable plant material known as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). Specific objectives designed to achieve the project goal focus on understanding the fundamental biomolecular and physicochemical interactions to: 1) Computationally identify plant-derived AMPs that preferentially bind viral capsid proteins for use in plant-based pathogen filters; 2) Validate chosen AMPs using lab removal tests with the enteric viruses Adenovirus 2, Rotavirus OSU strain, and Tulane virus (a surrogate for human norovirus); 3) Identify readily available substrates and feasible filter configurations that can be tailored to a range of applications; and 4) Quantify interactions and interferences between filter surfaces, viruses, and water matrix components to enable translation to the field scale. Successful completion of these research objectives will lead to the development of a data-driven framework for creating and evaluating AMP-based materials. Further, low cost-effective plant-based pathogen filters have the potential to reduce waterborne disease worldwide through widespread adoption of the technology.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.