Longitudinal fecal shedding of SARS-CoV-2, pepper mild mottle virus, and human mitochondrial DNA in COVID-19 patients

Autor: Pengbo Liu, Orlando Sablon, Yuke Wang, Stephen Patrick Hilton, Lana Khalil, Jessica Mae Ingersoll, Jennifer Truell, Sri Edupuganti, Ghina Alaaeddine, Amal Naji, Eduardo Monarrez, Marlene Wolfe, Nadine Rouphael, Colleen Kraft, Christine L. Moe
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Frontiers in Medicine, Vol 11 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2296-858X
DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1417967
Popis: Since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been widely applied in many countries and regions for monitoring COVID-19 transmission in the population through testing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in wastewater. However, the amount of virus shed by individuals over time based on the stage of infection and accurate number of infections in the community creates challenges in predicting COVID-19 prevalence in the population and interpreting WBE results. In this study, we measured SARS-CoV-2, pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV), and human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in longitudinal fecal samples collected from 42 COVID-19 patients for up to 42 days after diagnosis. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in 73.1% (19/26) of inpatient study participants in at least one of the collected fecal specimens during the sampling period. Most participants shed the virus within 3 weeks after diagnosis, but five inpatient participants still shed the virus between 20 and 60 days after diagnosis. The median concentration of SARS-CoV-2 in positive fecal samples was 1.08 × 105 genome copies (GC)/gram dry fecal material. PMMoV and mtDNA were detected in 99.4% (154/155) and 100% (155/155) of all fecal samples, respectively. The median concentrations of PMMoV RNA and mtDNA in fecal samples were 1.73 × 107 and 2.49 × 108 GC/dry gram, respectively. These results provide important information about the dynamics of fecal shedding of SARS-CoV-2 and two human fecal indicators in COVID-19 patients. mtDNA showed higher positive rates, higher concentrations, and less variability between and within individuals than PMMoV, suggesting that mtDNA could be a better normalization factor for WBE results than PMMoV.
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