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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Madison, Wisconsin » U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center » Environmentally Integrated Dairy Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #426807
Research Project: Managing Nutrients and Assessing Pathogen Emission Risks for Sustainable Dairy Production Systems

Location: Environmentally Integrated Dairy Management Research

Title: Engineering a continuous culture system to investigate the role of microbial communities from Lake Geneva in enteric virus inactivation

Author
item MORALES, L. DANIELA - Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (EPFL)
item WYNN, HTET KYI - Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (EPFL)
item PETER, HANNES - Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (EPFL)
item Cook, Rachel
item Heffron, Joseph
item KOHN, TAMAR - Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (EPFL)

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/1/2025
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Lakewater microbes challenge the environmental stability of enteric viruses in aquatic ecosystems. We have previously shown that individual bacteria and bacterial communities from Lake Geneva reduced the infectivity of enteric viruses. Moreover, high bacterial species richness in lakewater is positively correlated to viral inactivation. Here, we used chemostat cultures to assess the impact of lake water microbial diversity on inactivation of enteric viruses. Chemostats provide a constant inflow of nutrients and maintain bacteria in exponential growth phase. To manipulate microbial diversity inside the chemostats, we used three approaches: dilution-to-extinction (1, 1:10 and 1:100), nutrient flow dynamics (0.062 – 0.125 ml/min) and nutrient supplementation (phosphate and nitrogen). Full-length 16S rRNA sequencing was used to compare bacterial diversity. Dilution-to-extinction and flow dynamics yielded communities with similar richness but different composition. Nine microbial communities grown using dilution-to-extinction were spiked with Coxsackievirus B5 and Human Adenovirus 2. These communities decreased the infectivity of both viruses > 2 log after 30 hours. In contrast, nutrient supplementation decreased viral inactivation compared to non-supplemented lake water. Ongoing work will identify key taxa associated with viral inactivation. Overall, we used a multidisciplinary approach to grow lakewater communities with inactivating capacity against enteric viruses.