Agricultural Menace Turned Effective Tool for Microbial Water Quality Monitoring

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Agricultural Menace Turned Effective Tool for Microbial Water Quality Monitoring

Pepper mild mottle virus: Agricultural menace turned effective tool for microbial water quality monitoring and assessing (waste)water treatment technologies

Erin M. Symonds , Karyna Rosario, Mya Breitbart

Introduction

Domestic wastewater pollution in environmental waters or water reuse supplies represents a threat to public health because of high concentrations of diverse pathogens associated with human excreta. Since it is difficult to directly measure waterborne pathogens of concern, microbial water quality monitoring efforts often use surrogates or indicator organisms that are easily detected and whose presence reflects pathogen persistence. Here, we describe an unconventional viral indicator of wastewater pollution, pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV), a plant pathogen that was first proposed as a water quality indicator in 2009 and promises to improve microbial water quality management worldwide.

Symonds EM, Rosario K, Breitbart M (2019) Pepper mild mottle virus: Agricultural menace turned effective tool for microbial water quality monitoring and assessing (waste)water treatment technologies. PLoS Pathog 15(4): e1007639. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1007639

Source: PLOS Journal

Taxonomy