Global Distribution of Human-Associated Fecal Genetic Markers in Reference Samples from Six Continents

René E Mayer^{1

2}, Georg H Reischer^{1

3}, Simone K Ixenmaier^{1

2}, Julia Derx^{2

4}, Alfred Paul Blaschke^{2

4}, James E Ebdon⁵, Rita Linke^{1

2}, Lukas Egle⁶, Warish Ahmed⁷, Anicet R Blanch⁸, Denis Byamukama⁹, Marion Savill¹⁰, Douglas Mushi¹¹, Héctor A Cristóbal¹², Thomas A Edge¹³, Margit A Schade¹⁴, Asli Aslan¹⁵, Yolanda M Brooks¹⁶, Regina Sommer^{2

17}, Yoshifumi Masago¹⁸, Maria I Sato¹⁹, Huw D Taylor⁵, Joan B Rose¹⁶, Stefan Wuertz²⁰, Orin C Shanks²¹, Harald Piringer²², Robert L Mach²³, Domenico Savio²⁴, Matthias Zessner⁶, Andreas H Farnleitner^{1

2

24}

Affiliations

¹ Research Group Environmental Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics 166-5-3 , Institute of Chemical, Environmental and Bioscience Engineering , TU Wien, 1060 Vienna , Austria.
² Interuniversity Cooperation Centre Water & Health , Vienna , Austria.
³ Molecular Diagnostics Group, IFA-Tulln , Institute of Chemical, Environmental and Bioscience Engineering , TU Wien, 3430 Tulln , Austria.
⁴ Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna , Austria.
⁵ Environment & Public Health Research and Enterprise Group, School of Environment and Technology , University of Brighton , BN2 4GJ Brighton , U.K.
⁶ Institute for Water Quality and Resource Management, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna , Austria.
⁷ CSIRO Land and Water, Ecosciences Precinct , 41 Boggo Road , Qld 4102 , Australia.
⁸ Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics , University of Barcelona , 08028 Barcelona , Spain.
⁹ Department of Biochemistry , Makerere University , P.O. Box 27755 Kampala , Uganda.
¹⁰ Affordable Water Limited , 1011 Auckland , New Zealand.
¹¹ Department of Biosciences , Sokoine University of Agriculture , PO BOX 3038, Morogoro , Tanzania.
¹² Laboratorio de Aguas y Suelos, Instituto de Investigaciones para la Industria Química (INIQUI) , Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas and Universidad Nacional de Salta , CP 4400 Salta , Argentina.
¹³ Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canada Centre for Inland Waters , Burlington , L7S 1A1 , Ontario , Canada.
¹⁴ Bavarian Environment Agency , 86179 Augsburg , Germany.
¹⁵ Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences , Georgia Southern University , Statesboro , 30460 Georgia , United States.
¹⁶ Department of Fisheries and Wildlife , Michigan State University East Lansing , 48824 Michigan , United States.
¹⁷ Institute for Hygiene and Applied Immunology, Water Hygiene , Medical University of Vienna , 1090 Vienna , Austria.
¹⁸ New Industry Creation Hatchery Center , Tohoku University , 980-8579 Sendai , Japan.
¹⁹ Departamento de Análises Ambientais , CETESB - Cia. Ambiental do Estado de São Paulo , 05459-900 São Paulo , Brasil.
²⁰ Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering and School of Civil and Environmental Engineering , Nanyang Technological University , 637551 Singapore.
²¹ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency , Office of Research and Development , 45268 Cincinnati , Ohio , United States.
²² VRVis Research Center , 1220 Vienna , Austria.
²³ Research Division Biochemical Technology , Institute of Chemical, Environmental and Bioscience Engineering , TU Wien, 1060 Vienna , Austria.
²⁴ Division Water Quality and Health, Department Pharmacology, Physiology and Microbiology , Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences , 3500 Krems an der Donau , Austria.

PMID: 29570973
PMCID: PMC5932593
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b04438

Global Distribution of Human-Associated Fecal Genetic Markers in Reference Samples from Six Continents

René E Mayer et al. Environ Sci Technol. 2018.

. 2018 May 1;52(9):5076-5084.

doi: 10.1021/acs.est.7b04438. Epub 2018 Apr 16.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Research Group Environmental Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics 166-5-3 , Institute of Chemical, Environmental and Bioscience Engineering , TU Wien, 1060 Vienna , Austria.
² Interuniversity Cooperation Centre Water & Health , Vienna , Austria.
³ Molecular Diagnostics Group, IFA-Tulln , Institute of Chemical, Environmental and Bioscience Engineering , TU Wien, 3430 Tulln , Austria.
⁴ Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna , Austria.
⁵ Environment & Public Health Research and Enterprise Group, School of Environment and Technology , University of Brighton , BN2 4GJ Brighton , U.K.
⁶ Institute for Water Quality and Resource Management, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna , Austria.
⁷ CSIRO Land and Water, Ecosciences Precinct , 41 Boggo Road , Qld 4102 , Australia.
⁸ Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics , University of Barcelona , 08028 Barcelona , Spain.
⁹ Department of Biochemistry , Makerere University , P.O. Box 27755 Kampala , Uganda.
¹⁰ Affordable Water Limited , 1011 Auckland , New Zealand.
¹¹ Department of Biosciences , Sokoine University of Agriculture , PO BOX 3038, Morogoro , Tanzania.
¹² Laboratorio de Aguas y Suelos, Instituto de Investigaciones para la Industria Química (INIQUI) , Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas and Universidad Nacional de Salta , CP 4400 Salta , Argentina.
¹³ Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canada Centre for Inland Waters , Burlington , L7S 1A1 , Ontario , Canada.
¹⁴ Bavarian Environment Agency , 86179 Augsburg , Germany.
¹⁵ Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences , Georgia Southern University , Statesboro , 30460 Georgia , United States.
¹⁶ Department of Fisheries and Wildlife , Michigan State University East Lansing , 48824 Michigan , United States.
¹⁷ Institute for Hygiene and Applied Immunology, Water Hygiene , Medical University of Vienna , 1090 Vienna , Austria.
¹⁸ New Industry Creation Hatchery Center , Tohoku University , 980-8579 Sendai , Japan.
¹⁹ Departamento de Análises Ambientais , CETESB - Cia. Ambiental do Estado de São Paulo , 05459-900 São Paulo , Brasil.
²⁰ Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering and School of Civil and Environmental Engineering , Nanyang Technological University , 637551 Singapore.
²¹ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency , Office of Research and Development , 45268 Cincinnati , Ohio , United States.
²² VRVis Research Center , 1220 Vienna , Austria.
²³ Research Division Biochemical Technology , Institute of Chemical, Environmental and Bioscience Engineering , TU Wien, 1060 Vienna , Austria.
²⁴ Division Water Quality and Health, Department Pharmacology, Physiology and Microbiology , Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences , 3500 Krems an der Donau , Austria.

PMID: 29570973
PMCID: PMC5932593
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b04438

Abstract

Numerous bacterial genetic markers are available for the molecular detection of human sources of fecal pollution in environmental waters. However, widespread application is hindered by a lack of knowledge regarding geographical stability, limiting implementation to a small number of well-characterized regions. This study investigates the geographic distribution of five human-associated genetic markers (HF183/BFDrev, HF183/BacR287, BacHum-UCD, BacH, and Lachno2) in municipal wastewaters (raw and treated) from 29 urban and rural wastewater treatment plants (750-4 400 000 population equivalents) from 13 countries spanning six continents. In addition, genetic markers were tested against 280 human and nonhuman fecal samples from domesticated, agricultural and wild animal sources. Findings revealed that all genetic markers are present in consistently high concentrations in raw (median log₁₀ 7.2-8.0 marker equivalents (ME) 100 mL^-1) and biologically treated wastewater samples (median log₁₀ 4.6-6.0 ME 100 mL^-1) regardless of location and population. The false positive rates of the various markers in nonhuman fecal samples ranged from 5% to 47%. Results suggest that several genetic markers have considerable potential for measuring human-associated contamination in polluted environmental waters. This will be helpful in water quality monitoring, pollution modeling and health risk assessment (as demonstrated by QMRAcatch) to guide target-oriented water safety management across the globe.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Figures

**Figure 1**
Concentration of human-associated MST markers in raw (R) and biologically treated (T) wastewater. ME: marker equivalents, n_q: number of quantifiable samples out of total of 29 samples each, s*: multiplicative standard deviation, boxes cover the 25th to 75th percentile; line within the boxes, median; whiskers, 10th to 90th percentile, solid circles represent outliers, respectively.

**Figure 2**
Cumulative distribution function of the Monte Carlo simulated marker reduction values. Dashed horizontal line denotes the 0.5 cumulative probability, corresponding reduction values represents median values (exemplarily highlighted with dashed vertical lines for Lachno2 and HF183/BacR287, respectively).

**Figure 3**
Genetic marker copies per reaction measured in human (H) and other animal (A) fecal DNA extracts for human-associated genetic markers (gray box previously published data). Results were measured in the 1:4 dilution of the DNA samples and transformed into logarithmic format after addition of 1 to each value. Boxes, 25th and 75th percentile; lines within the boxes, median; whiskers, 10th and 90th percentile, solid circles represent outliers, respectively; n, number of samples in each category.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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Global Distribution of Human-Associated Fecal Genetic Markers in Reference Samples from Six Continents

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Global Distribution of Human-Associated Fecal Genetic Markers in Reference Samples from Six Continents

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Conflict of interest statement

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