Genetic variability of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and associations with community transmission

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hill, Dustin T.; Schulman, Rafael; Caldas, Ian Vasconcellos; Dunham, Christopher; Zhu, Yifan; Lamson, Daryl; Rickerman, Lindsey; George, Kirsten St.; Ahmed-Braimah, Yasir; Green, Hyatt; Kmush, Brittany L.; Middleton, Frank; Larsen, David A.
• 署名单位: State University of New York (SUNY) System; State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science & Forestry; SUNY Delhi; SUNY Community College; State University of New York (SUNY) System; SUNY Upstate Medical University; Syracuse University; Syracuse University; Wadsworth Center; State University of New York (SUNY) System; State University of New York (SUNY) System; University at Albany, SUNY
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.aed6094
• 发表日期: 2026-05-14
• 页码: 735-741
• 关键词: diversity; SURVEILLANCE

摘要

Sequencing genetic material from community wastewater facilitates the study of virus diversity. Diversity can be estimated using the variation in nucleotides and number of variants identified, increasing the information obtained from one wastewater sample. Using 12,290 wastewater sequences of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), we found that virus diversity is a strong indicator of disease transmission, with a significant correlation between average weekly diversity and average weekly new COVID-19 infections. Although the concentration of viruses is the common measure of disease transmission from wastewater, we found that diversity is a better indicator, as it is unhampered by the noise inherent in the wastewater. We show that multiple measures of diversity yield similar results, which suggests that genetic diversity could be useful for increasing the utility of wastewater data.