カテゴリ

論文発表

発表または掲載年月日

2024.05.30

発表学会／学会誌名

Scientific Reports

発表題目

Explaining the impact of mutations on quantification of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater

発表者

Noriko Endo, Yoshiaki Nihei, Tomonori Fujita, Makoto Yasojima, Fumi Daigo, Hiroaki Takemori, Masafumi Nakamura, Ryo Matsuda, Sorn Sovannrlaksmy, Masaru Ihara

発表者所属

Kyoto University, Water Agency, Inc., Shimadzu Techno-Research, Inc., Hiyoshi Corporation, Kochi University

概要

Wastewater surveillance is an effective tool for monitoring community spread of COVID-19 and other diseases. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) analysis for wastewater surveillance is more susceptible to mutations in target genome regions than binary PCR analysis for clinical surveillance. The SARS-CoV-2 concentrations in wastewater estimated by N1 and N2 qPCR assays started to diverge around July 2022 in data from different sampling sites, analytical methods, and analytical laboratories in Japan. On the basis of clinical genomic surveillance data and experimental data, we demonstrate that the divergence is due to two mutations in the N1 probe region, which can cause underestimation of viral concentrations. We further show that this inaccuracy can be alleviated if the qPCR data are analyzed with the second derivative method or the Cy0 method instead of the crossing point method.