Comparison between the recovery rate of three concentration protocols of water samples intended for analysis by Molecular Biology: Membrane filtration, filtration on gauze pad and centrifugation

The presence of microorganisms (bacteria, protozoa, viruses, etc.) in water is a crucial indicator of its quality and safety. The detection of these microorganisms by conventional and classical techniques is widely used in water quality control laboratories; nevertheless these methods have limitations in terms of rapidity and precision of results. The use of Molecular Biology has been a great evolution in the techniques of water analysis. However, the choice of the concentration protocol allowing for the best rate of microorganism recovery in a suspension remains a real challenge. The objective of this experimental study is to compare the recovery rate of three different protocols of water concentration (membrane filtration, filtration on gauze pad and centrifugation) for samples intended for analysis by polymerase chain reaction PCR. Which can then serve as a reference protocol for water quality control laboratories. The experimental results have shown that the membrane filtration protocol yields the best recovery rate and concentration of microorganisms followed by filtration on gauze pad, while the centrifugation protocol (8000g, 10 min, 22 °C) gives the lowest rate of recovery out of the three protocols. The experimental results obtained through this study allows us to contribute to the optimization and standardization of water samples concentration techniques intended for analysis by Molecular Biology.