How sewage led researchers to the contagious COVID-19 variant in Central Oregon

Sewage assembly played an important role in helping researchers detect the presence of the highly contagious COVID-19 variant in Central Oregon.

Scientists from Oregon State University’s Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing said Friday they collected wastewater samples as part of a partnership between Oregon Health Authority and the university’s TRACE project.

Even before global concerns arose about the spread of more infectious variants, this Oregon project collected wastewater samples to monitor the spread and spread of the coronavirus in dozens of communities across the state.

The program was valuable in detecting variants when samples collected from Bend on December 22 were followed up by OSU last week, revealing the presence of the British variant.

The UK variant, called B.1.1.7, is spreading faster than the versions that have dominated the pandemic over the past year. It has so far been detected in three Oregonians.

“Over time, we will see COVID-19 variants increasingly rising and falling by our population, and the emergence of a new variant is not necessarily worrying,” said Dr. release. “However, monitoring variants is critical to our understanding of disease transmission, disease severity, ability to test, vaccine efficacy, and resistance to treatment.”

People infected with the coronavirus shed the virus in their feces. Scientists have developed a technique to detect genetic material of the virus in the wastewater stream. Depending on where the sewage samples are taken, it is possible to isolate neighborhoods, hospitals, schools and other facilities to monitor for outbreaks.

The use of these samples to identify specific mutations of coronavirus is a new and evolving use of this technique. It moves scientists’ abilities beyond testing whether the coronavirus is present; by sequencing the genome of the virus, researchers can specifically determine what variants there are.

As of Monday, the OSU laboratory has completed genetic sequencing of more than 1,100 samples – 936 wastewater samples and 174 individual samples from the TRACE project.

Related: Coronavirus wastewater monitoring extends to communities across Oregon

OSU’s genome research center and biocomputer and TRACE co-principal investigator Brett Tyler said another COVID-19 variant was also detected in recent samples.

“We tracked down the genetic fingerprint of another variant that is on the watch,” Tyler said during a Friday press conference. The variant is known as L452R, or the “California variant”, named after the state where it spread after arriving in the USA. It was first identified in Denmark.

The variant was detected in four wastewater samples from the OSU campus and in samples from wastewater plants in Albany, Forest Grove, Klamath Falls, Lincoln City and Silverton, Tyler said.

The L452R variant has been in existence since March last year, but was recently the cause of major outbreaks in Santa Clara County, California and has spread throughout Southern California. Tests have shown that COVID-19 vaccines may be less effective against the variant.

“We are somewhat concerned about this tribe, but it is not as worrying as the UK, South African and Brazilian tribes,” Tyler said. “But we want to keep a close eye on it.”

Recently, researchers at the center have been particularly wary of identifying evidence of different COVID-19 variants, especially the UK, South African and Brazilian variants that are more contagious than common variants of the virus.

These three variants have a mutation in the venous protein of the virus, which can allow individual particles of the virus to adhere more effectively to a person’s cells.

Another variant detected in South Africa appears from results published so far to be less responsive to some versions of the COVID-19 vaccine. It was only detected in the United States this week.

The Oregon Health Authority and OSU plan to expand the practice of collecting wastewater samples to every state in the state and follow weekly sequences to keep up with the arrival and distribution of variants.

A scientist who recently published a study on this type of research said that just as valuable, it is also difficult work.

‘This is when we can distinguish these different mutations. The catch is just that there is so little of it in the wastewater compared to all the other things that are in the wastewater, ”said Rose Kantor, a researcher at Berkeley University. “It’s just hard to get a good sample and do it well.”

Kantor’s paper was published in mid-January in the journal mBio.

Now that her Bay Area research team knows what to look for, they are working with other groups to develop targeted tests to determine if specific viral mutations are present, she said.

“It’s much more achievable and faster than sequence,” she said. “That said, with sequence, variants can be discovered that we do not know.”