Evaluation of different bacteriophage groups as faecal indicators in contaminated natural waters in southern England

Moriñigo, Miguel A.; Wheeler, David C.; Berry, Christine; Jones, Caryn; Muñoz, M.; Córnax, Roberto; Borrego, Juan J.

doi:10.1016/0043-1354(92)90022-v

Cited by 59 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The behaviour of bacteriophages in nature has been compared with that of viruses and bacterial indicators elsewhere (Bell 1976;Payment et al 1988;Gironés et al 1989;Moriñigo et al 1992;Chung and Sobsey 1993;Araujo et al 1997;Jofre et al 2000). However, few of these reports contain data on the complete set of bacterial and bacteriophage indicators.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Removal and inactivation of indicator bacteriophages in fresh waters

et al. 2002

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Aims:The removal and inactivation of faecal coliform (FC) bacteria, enterococci (ENT), sulphite-reducing clostridia (SRC), somatic coliphages, F-specific RNA bacteriophages and bacteriophages infecting Bacteroides fragilis in fresh waters. Methods and Results: Removal was studied in two areas of a river. The results showed different removal of each group of microbes. Faecal coliform bacteria were removed faster than any other, whereas SRC and bacteriophages infecting Bact. fragilis were the most persistent. Inactivation was measured by 'in situ' experiments, which showed significant differences in survival of the different groups of bacterial and bacteriophage indicators. The SRC and bacteriophages were more resistant than faecal coliforms and enterococci, with the exception of F-specific RNA bacteriophages in the summer. Inactivation experiments with pure cultures of bacteriophages confirmed that phage B40-8 of Bact. fragilis was the most resistant. Conclusions: Bacteria and bacteriophages show different resistance to natural inactivation. The use of phages allows information to be obtained in addition to that provided by bacterial indicators. Somatic coliphages and phages infecting Bact. fragilis might supply that indicator function. Significance and Impact of the Study: Confirmation was obtained that bacteriophages provided additional information to that provided by bacterial indicators to monitor the natural inactivation of viruses and/or pathogens.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Removal and inactivation of indicator bacteriophages in fresh waters

et al. 2002

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“…Bacterial indicators like Escherichia coli have proved to be inadequate for the assessment of viral contamination (16). Many studies have considered E. coli bacteriophages attractive candidates for predicting virus survival in water (3,14,26,34), and among them, F-specific RNA phages have been recommended as a surrogate to evaluate pathogenic virus removal by membrane filtration used in water treatment (18,20).…”

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confidence: 99%

Effects of Ionic Strength on Bacteriophage MS2 Behavior and Their Implications for the Assessment of Virus Retention by Ultrafiltration Membranes

Furiga

Pierre

Glories

et al. 2011

Appl Environ Microbiol

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Bacteriophage MS2 is widely used as a surrogate to estimate pathogenic virus elimination by membrane filtration processes used in water treatment. Given that this water technology may be conducted with different types of waters, we focused on investigating the effects of ionic strength on MS2 behavior. For this, MS2 was analyzed while suspended in solutions of various ionic strengths, first in a batch experiment and second during membrane ultrafiltration, and quantified using (i) quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR), which detects the total number of viral genomes, (ii) qRT-PCR without the RNA extraction step, which reflects only particles with a broken capsid (free RNA), and (iii) the PFU method, which detects only infectious viruses. At the beginning of the batch experiments using solutions containing small amounts of salts, losses of MS2 infectivity (90%) and broken particles (20%) were observed; these proportions did not change during filtration. In contrast, in high-ionic-strength solutions, bacteriophage kept its biological activity under static conditions, but it quickly lost its infectivity during the filtration process. Increasing the ionic strength decreased both the inactivation and the capsid breakup in the feed suspension and increased the loss of infectivity in the filtration retentate, while the numbers of MS2 genomes were identical in both experiments. In conclusion, the effects of ionic strength on MS2 behavior may significantly distort the results of membrane filtration processes, and therefore, the combination of classical and molecular methods used here is useful for an effective validation of the retention efficiency of ultrafiltration membranes.

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“…Tais achados coincidem com as observações de diversos autores 8,12,15,17,18,19 . Verificou-se, portanto, nas condições da realização do presente trabalho, que não foi viável a utilização da presença de colifagos como indicadores de poluição fecal para o monitoramento da qualidade da água dos poços rasos analisados, baseado na ausência de coliformes fecais em 100 ml da amostra, uma vez que não foi obtida correlação entre os números de colifagos e das bactérias indicadoras de poluição fecal pequisadas.…”

Section: Resultsunclassified