TY - JOUR
T1 - Polymorphism of the glucosyltransferase gene (ycjM) in Escherichia coli and its use for tracking human fecal pollution in water
AU - Deng, Daiyong
AU - Zhang, Ning
AU - Xu, Dong
AU - Reed, Mary
AU - Liu, Fengjing
AU - Zheng, Guolu
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by a USDA-NIFA 1890 Capacity Building Grant (Grants.gov#: GRANT11339442 , to Zheng).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2015/12/15
Y1 - 2015/12/15
N2 - This study examined polymorphism of the glucosyltransferase gene (ycjM) in fecal Escherichia coli isolates and evaluated the use of the sequence polymorphism for measuring human fecal pollution in water. Significant nucleotide variations were observed through comparative analysis of the ycjM sequences of 70 E. coli strains isolated from the feces of humans, domestic livestock, and wild animals. Three distinct types of ycjM sequences were found: universal- ycjM, human/chicken- ycjM, and human- ycjM. Using the human- ycjM sequences, both a polymerase chain reaction (PCR), Hycj-PCR and a quantitative PCR, Hycj-qPCR, were developed. As shown by the Hycj-PCR amplification, the human- ycjM marker appeared to be highly associated with the E. coli strains isolated from human feces, based on the analysis of 370 E. coli strains isolated from humans and seven other animal species. Similarly, the human- ycjM marker was highly linked with human feces, as demonstrated by the Hycj-PCR assay, when using 337 fecal DNA samples from 16 host animal sources, including both domestic and wild animals. Overall, the specificity and sensitivity of the human- ycjM marker for differentiating between the feces of humans and those of nonhuman groups were 99.7% and 100%, respectively; the prevalence of the marker appeared to be greater than 50% in the human-feces-associated E. coli population. In addition, our study showed that the quantification of human E. coli by the Hycj-qPCR was linearly correlated with the anthropogenic activity within a watershed. Our study suggests that this novel human- ycjM marker and the resulting PCR-based methods developed should be useful for measuring human-associated E. coli and human fecal pollution in water.
AB - This study examined polymorphism of the glucosyltransferase gene (ycjM) in fecal Escherichia coli isolates and evaluated the use of the sequence polymorphism for measuring human fecal pollution in water. Significant nucleotide variations were observed through comparative analysis of the ycjM sequences of 70 E. coli strains isolated from the feces of humans, domestic livestock, and wild animals. Three distinct types of ycjM sequences were found: universal- ycjM, human/chicken- ycjM, and human- ycjM. Using the human- ycjM sequences, both a polymerase chain reaction (PCR), Hycj-PCR and a quantitative PCR, Hycj-qPCR, were developed. As shown by the Hycj-PCR amplification, the human- ycjM marker appeared to be highly associated with the E. coli strains isolated from human feces, based on the analysis of 370 E. coli strains isolated from humans and seven other animal species. Similarly, the human- ycjM marker was highly linked with human feces, as demonstrated by the Hycj-PCR assay, when using 337 fecal DNA samples from 16 host animal sources, including both domestic and wild animals. Overall, the specificity and sensitivity of the human- ycjM marker for differentiating between the feces of humans and those of nonhuman groups were 99.7% and 100%, respectively; the prevalence of the marker appeared to be greater than 50% in the human-feces-associated E. coli population. In addition, our study showed that the quantification of human E. coli by the Hycj-qPCR was linearly correlated with the anthropogenic activity within a watershed. Our study suggests that this novel human- ycjM marker and the resulting PCR-based methods developed should be useful for measuring human-associated E. coli and human fecal pollution in water.
KW - Human fecal indicator
KW - Land use
KW - Microbial source tracking
KW - Polymerase chain reaction
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U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.08.019
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.08.019
M3 - Article
C2 - 26282760
AN - SCOPUS:84941280584
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 537
SP - 260
EP - 267
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
ER -