Metagenomics of Wastewater Influent from Wastewater Treatment Facilities across Ontario in the Era of Emerging SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern

Opeyemi U Lawal; Linkang Zhang; Valeria R Parreira; R Stephen Brown; Charles Chettleburgh; Nora Dannah; Robert Delatolla; Kimberly A Gilbride; Tyson E Graber; Golam Islam; James Knockleby; Sean Ma; Hanlan McDougall; R Michael McKay; Aleksandra Mloszewska; Claire Oswald; Mark Servos; Megan Swinwood-Sky; Gustavo Ybazeta; Marc Habash; Lawrence Goodridge

doi:10.1128/mra.00362-22

Metagenomics of Wastewater Influent from Wastewater Treatment Facilities across Ontario in the Era of Emerging SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern

Microbiol Resour Announc. 2022 Jul 21;11(7):e0036222. doi: 10.1128/mra.00362-22. Epub 2022 May 31.

Authors

Opeyemi U Lawal^#¹, Linkang Zhang^#¹, Valeria R Parreira^#¹, R Stephen Brown², Charles Chettleburgh³, Nora Dannah⁴, Robert Delatolla⁵, Kimberly A Gilbride^{4

6}, Tyson E Graber⁷, Golam Islam⁸, James Knockleby⁹, Sean Ma³, Hanlan McDougall³, R Michael McKay¹⁰, Aleksandra Mloszewska⁹, Claire Oswald^{6

11}, Mark Servos¹², Megan Swinwood-Sky³, Gustavo Ybazeta⁹, Marc Habash³, Lawrence Goodridge¹

Affiliations

¹ Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety, Department of Food Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
² Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
³ School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
⁴ Department of Chemistry and Biology, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁵ Department of Civil Engineering, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
⁶ Urban Water Research Centre, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁷ Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
⁸ Faculty of Science, Ontario Tech University, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada.
⁹ Health Sciences North Research Institute, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
¹⁰ Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
¹¹ Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
¹² Department of Biology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

We report metagenomic sequencing analyses of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in composite wastewater influent from 10 regions in Ontario, Canada, during the transition between Delta and Omicron variants of concern. The Delta and Omicron BA.1/BA.1.1 and BA.2-defining mutations occurring in various frequencies were reported in the consensus and subconsensus sequences of the composite samples.

Grants and funding

Ontario Genomics (OG)