Evaluating Nanotrap Microbiome Particles as A Wastewater Viral Concentration Method

Wastewater-based surveillance has emerged as a powerful approach to monitoring infectious diseases within a community. Typically, wastewater samples are concentrated before viral analyses to improve sensitivity. Current concentration methods vary in time requirements, costs, and efficiency. Here, we evaluated the concentration efficiency and bias of a novel viral concentration approach, Nanotrap Microbiome Particles (NMP), in wastewater. NMP concentration efficiency was target-specific, with significantly lower concentrations of the bacterial indicator HF183 and viral indicator Carjivirus (formerly crAssphage) relative to direct extraction (1.2 × 10⁵ vs. 3.4 × 10⁵ GC/mL and 2.0 × 10⁵ vs. 1.2 × 10⁵ GC/mL, respectively), but significantly higher concentrations of the viral fecal indicator Pepper Mild Mottle Virus (PMMoV) relative to direct extraction (1.4 × 10⁵ vs. 8.4 × 10³ GC/mL). Targeted metagenomic sequencing showed that NMP resulted in significantly more unique species reads per sample than direct extractions (p < 0.001) by detecting species that went undetected by direct extractions. Key viral families identified with high abundances were Adenoviridae, Caliciviridae, Herpesviridae, Papillomaviridae, and Polyomaviridae. NMP showed differential ability for concentrating clinically relevant viral families, suggesting that the technology should be evaluated and optimized for specific viral targets before implementation.