We recently demonstrated the presence of naturalized populations of Escherichia coli in municipal sewage. We wanted to develop a quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assay targeting the uspC-IS30-flhDC marker of naturalized wastewater E. coli and assess the prevalence of these naturalized strains in wastewater. The limit of detection for the qPCR assay was 3.0 × 10⁻⁸ ng of plasmid DNA template with 100% specificity. This strain was detected throughout the wastewater treatment process, including treated effluents. We evaluated the potential of this marker for detecting municipal sewage/wastewater contamination in water by comparing it to other human and animal markers of fecal pollution. Strong correlations were observed between the uspC-IS30-flhDC marker and the human fecal markers Bacteroides HF183 and HumM2, but not animal fecal markers, in surface and stormwater samples. The uspC-IS30-flhDC marker appears to be a potential E. coli-based marker for human wastewater contamination.

我们最近证明了城市污水中存在大肠杆菌的归化种群。我们想开发一种定量聚合酶链式反应 (qPCR) 测定，针对归化废水大肠杆菌的uspC-IS30-flhDC标记，并评估这些归化菌株在废水中的流行情况。qPCR 测定的检测限为 3.0 × 10 ^-8ng 质粒 DNA 模板，100% 特异性。这种菌株在整个废水处理过程中都被检测到，包括处理过的流出物。我们通过将其与其他人类和动物粪便污染标记进行比较，评估了该标记在检测水中城市污水/废水污染方面的潜力。在地表水和雨水样本中，uspC-IS30-flhDC标记与人类粪便标记拟杆菌HF183 和 HumM2之间观察到强相关性，但与动物粪便标记无关。uspC -IS30-flhDC标记似乎是一种潜在的基于大肠杆菌的人类废水污染标记。