Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Metagenome-based comparisons of decay rates and host-specificity of fecal microbial communities for improved microbial source tracking

View ORCID ProfileBrittany Suttner, Blake G. Lindner, Minjae Kim, Roth E. Conrad, Luis M. Rodriguez, Luis H. Orellana, Eric R. Johnston, Janet K. Hatt, Kevin J. Zhu, View ORCID ProfileJoe Brown, Konstantinos T. Konstantinidis
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.17.448865
Brittany Suttner
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Brittany Suttner
Blake G. Lindner
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Minjae Kim
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Roth E. Conrad
2Ocean Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332,USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Luis M. Rodriguez
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Luis H. Orellana
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Eric R. Johnston
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Janet K. Hatt
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Kevin J. Zhu
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Joe Brown
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Joe Brown
Konstantinos T. Konstantinidis
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: kostas@ce.gatech.edu
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

ABSTRACT

Fecal material in the environment is a primary source of pathogens that cause waterborne diseases and affect over a billion people worldwide. Microbial source tracking (MST) assays based on single genes (e.g., 16S rRNA) do not always provide the resolution needed to attribute fecal contamination sources. In this work, we used dialysis bag mesocosms simulating a freshwater habitat that were spiked separately with cow, pig, or human feces to monitor the decay of host-specific fecal signals over time with metagenomics, traditional qPCR, and culture-based methods. Sequencing of the host fecal communities used as inocula recovered 79 non-redundant metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) whose abundance patterns showed that the majority of the fecal community signal was not detectable in the mesocosm metagenomes after four days. Several MAGs showed high host specificity, and thus are promising candidates for biomarkers for their respective host type. Traditional qPCR methods varied in their correlation with MAG decay kinetics. Notably, the human-specific Bacteroides assay, HF183/BFDRev, consistently under-estimated fecal pollution due to not being present in all hosts and/or primer mismatches. This work provides new insights on the persistence and decay kinetics of host-specific gut microbes in the environment and identifies several MAGs as putative biomarkers for improved MST.

SYNOPSIS We track cow, pig, and human fecal pollution in lake water over time with metagenomics and benchmark these novel protocols against standard culture-based and qPCR tests for water quality monitoring.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted June 17, 2021.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Metagenome-based comparisons of decay rates and host-specificity of fecal microbial communities for improved microbial source tracking
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Metagenome-based comparisons of decay rates and host-specificity of fecal microbial communities for improved microbial source tracking
Brittany Suttner, Blake G. Lindner, Minjae Kim, Roth E. Conrad, Luis M. Rodriguez, Luis H. Orellana, Eric R. Johnston, Janet K. Hatt, Kevin J. Zhu, Joe Brown, Konstantinos T. Konstantinidis
bioRxiv 2021.06.17.448865; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.17.448865
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Metagenome-based comparisons of decay rates and host-specificity of fecal microbial communities for improved microbial source tracking
Brittany Suttner, Blake G. Lindner, Minjae Kim, Roth E. Conrad, Luis M. Rodriguez, Luis H. Orellana, Eric R. Johnston, Janet K. Hatt, Kevin J. Zhu, Joe Brown, Konstantinos T. Konstantinidis
bioRxiv 2021.06.17.448865; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.17.448865

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Microbiology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4397)
  • Biochemistry (9632)
  • Bioengineering (7123)
  • Bioinformatics (24940)
  • Biophysics (12671)
  • Cancer Biology (9998)
  • Cell Biology (14405)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7989)
  • Ecology (12148)
  • Epidemiology (2067)
  • Evolutionary Biology (16026)
  • Genetics (10953)
  • Genomics (14778)
  • Immunology (9907)
  • Microbiology (23739)
  • Molecular Biology (9508)
  • Neuroscience (51056)
  • Paleontology (370)
  • Pathology (1545)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2694)
  • Physiology (4038)
  • Plant Biology (8696)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1512)
  • Synthetic Biology (2404)
  • Systems Biology (6459)
  • Zoology (1350)