Abstract:
Environmental surveillance serves as a monitoring tool for detecting the prevalence of viruses and assessing the burden of disease within a population. It is particularly effective in screening for both waterborne and non-waterborne pathogens. Fecal contamination of water resources poses a significant threat to public health, primarily through the transmission of enteric viruses. Therefore, environmental surveillance is vital for evaluating target areas and investigating viral presence. Traditional methods for virus concentration, such as the Bag-Mediated Filtration System (BMFS), ultrafiltration, ultracentrifugation, polyethylene glycol (PEG) precipitation, and skimmed milk flocculation (SMF), are commonly employed. However, these methods face limitations, including being time-consuming, costly, or having low collection efficiency, which can compromise the accuracy of environmental surveillance and lead to underestimation of the prevalence of viruses. There is a need for virus concentration methods that are straightforward, quick, cost-effective, and reproducible. In response, the development of novel concentration methods that enhance recovery efficiency from aquatic environments is imperative. One such promising candidate is Poly-γ-Glutamic Acid (PGA), known for its robust flocculation activity and applications in many fields, such as cosmetic production, medicines, and wastewater treatment. Nevertheless, there is currently no research exploring its potential for virus recovery from aquatic environments.This study evaluated the efficiency of Poly-γ-Glutamic Acid (PGA) in recovering viruses from aquatic environments, using nonenveloped bacteriophage MS2 as a surrogate for human viruses to test various parameters of PGA, including different processed volumes (5 mL and 10 mL), sample types (pellet and supernatant), groups (silica powder only vs. silica with PGL), and water sources (lake water vs. wastewater). Recovery efficiency (RE) was calculated to assess the effectiveness of the PolyGlu (PGL) method, which contains PGA.