Employing biofilters to detect human pathogens in Mid-Atlantic US waters

项目总结 在整个美国，沿海地区的人口一直在稳步增长。 此外，人类参与了许多水上娱乐活动，并消耗了大量的水。 从沿海水域养殖或捕捞的海鲜。所有这些活动都增加了多样性， 人类病原体的传播和传播潜力。不幸的是，关于 沿海水域人类病原体的环境流行病学有限。具有以下功能的工具 需要生成高分辨率信息来确定源、连通性和空间 这些生物在沿海环境中的分布。本项目提出了设计、优化、 以及利用一组溶液中序列捕获阵列来进行病毒和 确定细菌人类病原体的多样性、分布、扩散和连通性 沿海航道。两个捕获阵列都将利用现有的基因组资源来创建阵列， 这将包括共享和唯一基因座的混合。使用各种保守和可变的基因座 使我们能够捕获对跨类群比较研究有用的基因组区域 (共享基因座)和类群内的种群基因组研究(独特基因座)。效率，敏感度， 设计的捕获阵列的特异度将通过在来自 生物过滤器，这将是市场大小的牡蛎部署在废水处理的下游 设施。该项目产生的数据将用于进行初步的环境保护 这些寄生虫分类群在空间和时间尺度上的分子流行病学研究。这 信息对于公共卫生官员做出关于健康和安全的明智决定至关重要 指人类使用、居住在附近和消耗沿海水域的食物资源。

PROJECT SUMMARY Throughout the United States, human populations in coastal zones have been steadily increasing. Additionally, humans partake in many aquatic recreational activities and consume significant amounts of seafood either farmed or harvested from coastal waters. All of these activities increase the diversity, dispersal, and transmission potential of human pathogens. Unfortunately, knowledge of the environmental epidemiology of human pathogens in coastal waters is limited. Tools capable of generating high-resolution information are needed to determine the sources, connectivity, and spatial distribution of these organisms in coastal environments. This project proposes the design, optimization, and utilization of a set of in-solution sequence capture arrays to conduct targeted enrichment of viral and bacterial human pathogens to determine their diversity, distribution, dispersal, and connectivity in coastal waterways. Both capture arrays will utilize existing genomic resources to create the arrays, which will include a mixture of shared and unique loci. Using a variety of conserved and variable loci from these pathogens allows us to capture genomic regions useful for comparative studies across taxa (shared loci) and for population genomic studies (unique loci) within taxa. The efficiency, sensitivity, and specificity of the designed capture arrays will be assessed by testing these arrays on samples from biofilters, which will be market-sized oysters deployed downstream from wastewater treatment facilities. The data generated from this project will be used to conduct preliminary environmental molecular epidemiological studies on these parasite taxa across spatial and temporal scales. This information is critical for public health officials to make informed decisions about the health and safety of humans using, living near, and consuming food resources from coastal waters.