Research Project 3: Assessment of Microbial Indicators

研究项目3：微生物指标评估

• 批准号: 7176141
• 负责人: Helena Solo-Gabriele
• 金额: $ 7.86万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ROSENTEIL SCHOOL
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 至
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7176141
• 关键词: Clostridium perfringens; Enterococcus; Escherichia coli; Giardia; Norwalk virus; biohazard detection; clinical research; communicable diseases; epidemiology; hepatitis A virus; high throughput technology; hot climate; human subject; marine biology; public health; recreation; water microbiology; water quality; water sampling /testing

Microbial water quality indicators are found in high concentrations in sewage, and are thus used to determine whether or not a water body is safe for recreational purposes. Recently, concerns have been raised about the appropriate use of microbial indicators to regulate recreational uses of water bodies. This is particularly true for water bodies located in sub/tropical environments, due to the potential for microbial regrowth in sub/tropics, and the fact that studies used to set national guidelines were not conducted in sub/tropical environments. The primary goal of this proposed study is to evaluate the relationship between human health, and the physical and microbial characteristics of a coastal water and its shoreline. This goal will be addressed by measuring human health effects and microbial water quality at a recreational beach site within a sub/tropical climate, and by developing a predictive, coupled hydrodynamic and microbial fate model that can be used to distinguish impacts from sewage sources versus regrowth of microbes, each of these sources possibly resulting in different health effects as observed at the beach site. Substantial pilot data have been collected for the sub/tropical study site chosen for this research. These pilot data, as well as the literature, indicate that exposure to contaminated recreational marine waters may result in human health effects, and that the shoreline sediments is one likely source of indicator microbes. Human health will be evaluated in the proposed project through an epidemiologic study which will randomly assign exposure to water or beach with coordinated individual environmental sampling and repeated follow up of reported human health effects. Water quality will be evaluated through two sets of environmental measurements. The first phase of the environmental assessment will focus on identifying the distribution and sources of enterococci (the current federally recommended indicator microbe) within the study site. Enterococci will be monitored through an intensive effort aimed at identifying sources, in particular shoreline sources, and correlations with suspended sediment concentrations. The data gathered from this intensive sampling effort will be used to develop source functions for an enterococci fate model to be coupled with a hydrodynamic oceanographic model developed for the area. The coupled enterococci model will be used in a predictive fashion to determine when and where within the study beach the epidemiologic study should take place. The second phase of environmental measurements will focus on the analysis of multiple microbes coincident with times that participants participate in the epidemiologic study. Microbe measurements will include traditional (enterococci, E. coli, fecal coliform) and non-traditional (C. perfringens, coliphage) microbial indicators, as well as direct measurement of microbial pathogens (S. aureus, enterovirus, Norwalk virus, hepatitis A, C. parvum, and G. lamblia). Analysis of the viral and protozoan pathogens will include traditional PCR and results will be cross-checked against new Luminex technology. A primary goal of this research is to develop a rapid (same day), accurate high throughput and sensitive molecular test for the identification of pathogenic microorganisms in marine and freshwater environments. The Remote Sensing Core and the Genomics Core will participate in this proposed interdisciplinary collaborative research study. The results from the coupled hydrodynamic and microbial fate model will be compared with the pathogen and human health data for the purposes of predicting beach closures due to health hazards. Ultimately, the human, environmental and oceanographic data will be used to develop a predictive model with broad applicability to beaches in the sub/tropics with appropriate modifications for local conditions. The final result will be the improvement of recreational water quality monitoring in the sub/tropical marine environment, and an increase in public confidence in the results from microbial water quality monitoring and modeling.

在污水中发现高浓度的微生物水质指标，因此用于确定水体是否安全用于娱乐目的。最近，人们对适当使用微生物指标来管理水体的娱乐用途表示关注。这对于位于亚热带环境中的水体尤其如此，因为亚热带环境中存在微生物再生的潜力，而且用于制定国家指导方针的研究并非在亚热带环境中进行。这项拟议研究的主要目标是评估人类健康与身体和 沿海水域及其海岸线的微生物特征。这一目标将通过测量人类健康的影响和微生物的水质在一个休闲海滩网站在亚/热带气候，并通过开发一个预测，耦合的流体动力学和微生物的命运模型，可用于区分影响污水源与微生物的再生，这些来源中的每一个可能导致不同的健康影响观察到的海滩网站。为这项研究选择的亚/热带研究地点收集了大量的试验数据。这些试验数据以及文献表明，暴露于受污染的娱乐海洋沃茨可能会对人类健康产生影响，海岸线沉积物可能是指示微生物的一个来源。在拟议的项目中，将通过流行病学研究对人类健康进行评估，该研究将随机分配暴露于水或海滩的情况，并进行协调的个别环境取样，并对报告的人类健康影响进行反复跟踪。将通过两套环境测量来评估水质。环境评估的第一阶段将侧重于确定 研究中心内肠球菌（目前联邦推荐的指示微生物）的来源。将通过加紧努力监测肠球菌，目的是查明来源，特别是海岸来源，以及与悬浮泥沙浓度的关系。从这一密集的采样工作中收集的数据将用于开发肠球菌命运模型的源函数，该模型将与为该地区开发的流体动力学海洋学模型相结合。将以预测的方式使用偶联肠球菌模型，以确定在研究海滩内进行流行病学研究的时间和地点。环境测量的第二阶段将侧重于分析与参与者参与流行病学研究的时间一致的多种微生物。微生物测量将包括传统的（肠球菌，E。大肠杆菌、粪大肠菌群）和非传统（C.产气荚膜杆菌、大肠杆菌噬菌体）微生物指示剂，以及直接测量微生物病原体（S.金黄色葡萄球菌、肠道病毒、诺瓦克病毒、甲型肝炎、丙型肝炎。parvum，和G. Lamblia）。病毒和原生动物病原体的分析将包括传统的PCR，结果将与新的Luminex技术进行交叉检查。本研究的主要目标是开发一种快速（当天），准确的高通量和敏感的分子检测方法，用于鉴定海洋和淡水环境中的病原微生物。遥感核心和基因组学核心将参与这项拟议的跨学科合作研究。将从耦合的流体动力学和微生物归宿模型得到的结果与病原体进行比较， 人类健康数据，用于预测海滩因健康危害而关闭的情况。最终，人类、环境和海洋学数据将用于开发一个预测模型，该模型广泛适用于亚热带海滩，并根据当地条件进行适当修改。最终结果将是改善亚热带海洋环境中的娱乐水质监测，并提高公众对微生物水质监测和建模结果的信心。