Genetic Diversity and Evolutionary Convergence of Cryptic SARS-CoV-2 Lineages Detected Via Wastewater Sequencing

Overview

Journal medRxiv

Date 2022 Jun 9

PMID 35677072

Authors

Devon A Gregory

Monica Trujillo

Clayton Rushford

Anna Flury

Sherin Kannoly

Kaung Myat San

Dustin Lyfoung

Roger W Wiseman

Karen Bromert

Ming-Yi Zhou

Ellen Kesler

Nathan Bivens

Jay Hoskins

Chung-Ho Lin

David H OConnor

Chris Wieberg

Jeff Wenzel

Rose S Kantor

John J Dennehy

Marc C Johnson

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Author Summary: During the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater-based epidemiology has become an effective public health tool. Because many infected individuals shed SARS-CoV-2 in feces, wastewater has been monitored to reveal infection trends in the sewersheds from which the samples were derived. Here we report novel SARS-CoV-2 lineages in wastewater samples obtained from 3 different states in the USA. These lineages appeared in specific sewersheds intermittently over periods of up to 14 months, but generally have not been detected beyond the sewersheds in which they were initially found. Many of these lineages may have diverged in early 2020. Although these lineages share considerable overlap with each other, they have never been observed in patients anywhere in the world. While the wastewater lineages have similarities with lineages observed in long-term infections of immunocompromised patients, animal reservoirs cannot be ruled out as a potential source.

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