Document Type

Article

Journal Title

Genome Biology

Publication Date

2022

Volume

23

Abstract

Effectively monitoring the spread of SARS-CoV-2 mutants is essential to efforts to counter the ongoing pandemic. Predicting lineage abundance from wastewater, however, is technically challenging. We show that by sequencing SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater and applying algorithms initially used for transcriptome quantification, we can estimate lineage abundance in wastewater samples. We find high variability in signal among individual samples, but the overall trends match those observed from sequencing clinical samples. Thus, while clinical sequencing remains a more sensitive technique for population surveillance, wastewater sequencing can be used to monitor trends in mutant prevalence in situations where clinical sequencing is unavailable.

MeSH Headings

Humans, SARS-CoV-2, Waste Water, RNA, Viral, Transcriptome, COVID-19

ISSN

1474-760X

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Included in

Epidemiology Commons

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