SARS-CoV-2 RNA and N Antigen Quantification via Wastewater at the Campus Level, Building Cluster Level, and Individual-Building Level

Winnie Zambrana; David Catoe; Mhara M Coffman; Sooyeol Kim; Archana Anand; Daniel Solis; Malaya K Sahoo; Benjamin A Pinsky; Ami S Bhatt; Alexandria B Boehm; Marlene K Wolfe

doi:10.1021/acsestwater.2c00050

SARS-CoV-2 RNA and N Antigen Quantification via Wastewater at the Campus Level, Building Cluster Level, and Individual-Building Level

ACS ES T Water. 2022 May 12;2(11):2025-2033. doi: 10.1021/acsestwater.2c00050. eCollection 2022 Nov 11.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, California 94305, United States.
² Joint Initiative for Metrology in Biology, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, United States.
³ Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, United States.
⁴ Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, United States.
⁵ Department of Medicine (Hematology) and Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, United States.
⁶ Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, United States.

PMID: 37552722
DOI: 10.1021/acsestwater.2c00050

Abstract

Monitoring wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 from populations smaller than those served by wastewater treatment plants may help identify small spatial areas (subsewersheds) where COVID-19 infections are present. We sampled wastewater from three nested locations with different sized populations within the same sewer network at a university campus and quantified SARS-CoV-2 RNA using reverse transcriptase droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (PCR). SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations and/or concentrations normalized by PMMoV were positively associated with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases for both the sewershed level and the subsewershed level. We also used an antigen-based assay to detect the nucleocapsid (N) antigen from SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater samples at the sewershed level. The N antigen was regularly detected at the sewershed level, but the results were not associated with either laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases or SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations. The results of this study indicate that wastewater monitoring based on quantification of SARS-CoV-2 RNA using PCR-based methods is associated with COVID-19 cases at multiple geographic scales within the subsewershed level and can serve to aid the public health response.