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Investigating Environmental Matrices for Use in Avian Influenza Virus Surveillance—Surface Water, Sediments, and Avian Fecal Samples

Surveillance of avian influenza viruses (AIV) in wild water bird populations is important for early warning to protect poultry from incursions of high-pathogenicity (HP) AIV. Access to individual water birds is difficult and restricted and limits sampling depth. Here, we focused on environmental sam...

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Autores principales: Ahrens, Ann Kathrin, Selinka, Hans-Christoph, Wylezich, Claudia, Wonnemann, Hubert, Sindt, Ole, Hellmer, Hartmut H., Pfaff, Florian, Höper, Dirk, Mettenleiter, Thomas C., Beer, Martin, Harder, Timm C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Microbiology 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10100768/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36700688
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/spectrum.02664-22
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author Ahrens, Ann Kathrin
Selinka, Hans-Christoph
Wylezich, Claudia
Wonnemann, Hubert
Sindt, Ole
Hellmer, Hartmut H.
Pfaff, Florian
Höper, Dirk
Mettenleiter, Thomas C.
Beer, Martin
Harder, Timm C.
author_facet Ahrens, Ann Kathrin
Selinka, Hans-Christoph
Wylezich, Claudia
Wonnemann, Hubert
Sindt, Ole
Hellmer, Hartmut H.
Pfaff, Florian
Höper, Dirk
Mettenleiter, Thomas C.
Beer, Martin
Harder, Timm C.
author_sort Ahrens, Ann Kathrin
collection PubMed
description Surveillance of avian influenza viruses (AIV) in wild water bird populations is important for early warning to protect poultry from incursions of high-pathogenicity (HP) AIV. Access to individual water birds is difficult and restricted and limits sampling depth. Here, we focused on environmental samples such as surface water, sediments, and environmentally deposited fresh avian feces as matrices for AIV detection. Enrichment of viral particles by ultrafiltration of 10-L surface water samples using Rexeed-25-A devices was validated using a bacteriophage ϕ6 internal control system, and AIV detection was attempted using real-time RT-PCR and virus isolation. While validation runs suggested an average enrichment of about 60-fold, lower values of 10 to 15 were observed for field water samples. In total 25/36 (60%) of water samples and 18/36 (50%) of corresponding sediment samples tested AIV positive. Samples were obtained from shallow water bodies in habitats with large numbers of waterfowl during an HPAIV epizootic. Although AIV RNA was detected in a substantial percentage of samples virus isolation failed. Virus loads in samples often were too low to allow further sub- and pathotyping. Similar results were obtained with environmentally deposited avian feces. Moreover, the spectrum of viruses detected by these active surveillance methods did not fully mirror an ongoing HPAIV epizootic among waterfowl as detected by passive surveillance, which, in terms of sensitivity, remains unsurpassed. IMPORTANCE Avian influenza viruses (AIV) have a wide host range in the avian metapopulation and, occasionally, transmission to humans also occurs. Surface water plays a particularly important role in the epidemiology of AIV, as the natural virus reservoir is found in aquatic wild birds. Environmental matrices comprising surface water, sediments, and avian fecal matter deposited in the environment were examined for their usefulness in AIV surveillance. Despite virus enrichment efforts, environmental samples regularly revealed very low virus loads, which hampered further sub- and pathotyping. Passive surveillance based on oral and cloacal swabs of diseased and dead wild birds remained unsurpassed with respect to sensitivity.
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spelling pubmed-101007682023-04-14 Investigating Environmental Matrices for Use in Avian Influenza Virus Surveillance—Surface Water, Sediments, and Avian Fecal Samples Ahrens, Ann Kathrin Selinka, Hans-Christoph Wylezich, Claudia Wonnemann, Hubert Sindt, Ole Hellmer, Hartmut H. Pfaff, Florian Höper, Dirk Mettenleiter, Thomas C. Beer, Martin Harder, Timm C. Microbiol Spectr Research Article Surveillance of avian influenza viruses (AIV) in wild water bird populations is important for early warning to protect poultry from incursions of high-pathogenicity (HP) AIV. Access to individual water birds is difficult and restricted and limits sampling depth. Here, we focused on environmental samples such as surface water, sediments, and environmentally deposited fresh avian feces as matrices for AIV detection. Enrichment of viral particles by ultrafiltration of 10-L surface water samples using Rexeed-25-A devices was validated using a bacteriophage ϕ6 internal control system, and AIV detection was attempted using real-time RT-PCR and virus isolation. While validation runs suggested an average enrichment of about 60-fold, lower values of 10 to 15 were observed for field water samples. In total 25/36 (60%) of water samples and 18/36 (50%) of corresponding sediment samples tested AIV positive. Samples were obtained from shallow water bodies in habitats with large numbers of waterfowl during an HPAIV epizootic. Although AIV RNA was detected in a substantial percentage of samples virus isolation failed. Virus loads in samples often were too low to allow further sub- and pathotyping. Similar results were obtained with environmentally deposited avian feces. Moreover, the spectrum of viruses detected by these active surveillance methods did not fully mirror an ongoing HPAIV epizootic among waterfowl as detected by passive surveillance, which, in terms of sensitivity, remains unsurpassed. IMPORTANCE Avian influenza viruses (AIV) have a wide host range in the avian metapopulation and, occasionally, transmission to humans also occurs. Surface water plays a particularly important role in the epidemiology of AIV, as the natural virus reservoir is found in aquatic wild birds. Environmental matrices comprising surface water, sediments, and avian fecal matter deposited in the environment were examined for their usefulness in AIV surveillance. Despite virus enrichment efforts, environmental samples regularly revealed very low virus loads, which hampered further sub- and pathotyping. Passive surveillance based on oral and cloacal swabs of diseased and dead wild birds remained unsurpassed with respect to sensitivity. American Society for Microbiology 2023-01-26 /pmc/articles/PMC10100768/ /pubmed/36700688 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/spectrum.02664-22 Text en Copyright © 2023 Ahrens et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Research Article
Ahrens, Ann Kathrin
Selinka, Hans-Christoph
Wylezich, Claudia
Wonnemann, Hubert
Sindt, Ole
Hellmer, Hartmut H.
Pfaff, Florian
Höper, Dirk
Mettenleiter, Thomas C.
Beer, Martin
Harder, Timm C.
Investigating Environmental Matrices for Use in Avian Influenza Virus Surveillance—Surface Water, Sediments, and Avian Fecal Samples
title Investigating Environmental Matrices for Use in Avian Influenza Virus Surveillance—Surface Water, Sediments, and Avian Fecal Samples
title_full Investigating Environmental Matrices for Use in Avian Influenza Virus Surveillance—Surface Water, Sediments, and Avian Fecal Samples
title_fullStr Investigating Environmental Matrices for Use in Avian Influenza Virus Surveillance—Surface Water, Sediments, and Avian Fecal Samples
title_full_unstemmed Investigating Environmental Matrices for Use in Avian Influenza Virus Surveillance—Surface Water, Sediments, and Avian Fecal Samples
title_short Investigating Environmental Matrices for Use in Avian Influenza Virus Surveillance—Surface Water, Sediments, and Avian Fecal Samples
title_sort investigating environmental matrices for use in avian influenza virus surveillance—surface water, sediments, and avian fecal samples
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10100768/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36700688
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/spectrum.02664-22
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