Assessing residential activity in a home plumbing system simulator: monitoring the occurrence and relationship of major opportunistic pathogens and phagocytic amoebas

Abstract

Opportunistic premise plumbing pathogens (OPPPs) have been detected in buildings’ plumbing systems causing waterborne disease outbreaks in the United States. In this study, we monitored the occurrence of OPPPs along with free-living amoeba (FLA) and investigated the effects of residential activities in a simulated home plumbing system (HPS). Water samples were collected from various locations in the HPS and analyzed for three major OPPPs: Legionella pneumophila, nontuberculous mycobacterial species (e.g., Mycobacterium avium, M. intracellulare, and M. abscessus), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa along with two groups of amoebas (Acanthamoeba and Vermamoeba vermiformis). A metagenomic approach was also used to further characterize the microbial communities. Results show that the microbial community is highly diverse with evidence of spatial and temporal structuring influenced by environmental conditions. L. pneumophila was the most prevalent pathogen (86% of samples), followed by M. intracellulare (66%) and P. aeruginosa (21%). Interestingly, M. avium and M. abscessus were not detected in any samples. The data revealed a relatively low prevalence of Acanthamoeba spp. (4%), while V. vermiformis was widely detected (81%) across all the sampling locations within the HPS. Locations with a high concentration of L. pneumophila and M. intracellulare coincided with the highest detection of V. vermiformis, suggesting the potential growth of both populations within FLA and additional protection in drinking water. After a period of stagnation lasting at least 2-weeks, the concentrations of OPPPs and amoeba immediately increased and then decreased gradually back to the baseline. Furthermore, monitoring the microbial population after drainage of the hot water tank and partial drainage of the entire HPS demonstrated no significant mitigation of the selected OPPPs. This study demonstrates that these organisms can adjust to their environment during such events and may survive in biofilms and/or grow within FLA, protecting them from stressors in the supplied water.

Source-to-Tap Investigation of the Occurrence of Nontuberculous Mycobacteria in a Full-Scale Chloraminated Drinking Water System

“…Such regional differences could result in underestimating risk if the most appropriate species are not targeted (56,57). Due to the difficulties in identifying NTM to the species-or complex-level, drinking water studies often quantify total NTM, with many targeting the ATP synthase subunit c (atpE) gene (15,(58)(59)(60), or only investigating one or a few species of concern, such as M. avium or Mycobacterium intracellulare (19,22,61,62). Identification of NTM to the species level in colonies from plate culture is typically done using PCR and Sanger sequencing targeting genes such as β-subunit of RNA polymerase (rpoB) or heat shock protein 65 (hsp65) (63)(64)(65)(66).…”