Padilla, I. Y. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2021

Spatial-temporal targeted and non-targeted surveys to assess microbiological composition of drinking water in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria.

Loss of basic utilities, such as drinking water and electricity distribution, were sustained for months in the aftermath of Hurricane Marias (HM) landfall in Puerto Rico (PR) in September 2017. The goal of this study was to assess if there was deterioration in biological quality of drinking water due to these disruptions. This study characterized the microbial composition of drinking water following HM across nine drinking water systems (DWSs) in PR and utilized an extended temporal sampling campaign to determine if changes in the drinking water microbiome were indicative of HM associated disturbance followed by recovery. In addition to monitoring water chemistry, the samples were subjected to culture independent targeted and non-targeted microbial analysis including quantitative PCR (qPCR) and genome-resolved metagenomics. The qPCR results showed that residual disinfectant was the major driver of bacterial concentrations in tap water with marked decrease in concentrations from early to late sampling timepoints. While Mycobacterium avium and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were not detected in any sampling locations and timepoints, genetic material from Leptospira and Legionella pneumophila were transiently detected in a few sampling locations. The majority of metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs) recovered from these samples were not associated with pathogens and were consistent with bacterial community members routinely detected in DWSs. Further, whole metagenome-level comparisons between drinking water samples collected in this study with samples from other full-scale DWS indicated no significant deviation from expected community membership of the drinking water microbiome. Overall, our results suggest that disruptions due to HM did not result in significant and sustained deterioration of biological quality of drinking water at our study sites. Graphical Abstract O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=86 SRC="FIGDIR/small/442998v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (29K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@100c1e9org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@bae402org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1cf41bborg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1e46105_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2019

Toxicants Associated with Spontaneous Abortion in the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD)

BackgroundUp to 70% of all pregnancies result in either implantation failure or spontaneous abortion (SA). Many events occur before women are aware of their pregnancy and we lack a comprehensive understanding of high-risk SA chemicals. In epidemiologic research, failure to account for a toxicants impact on SA can also bias toxicant-birth outcome associations. Our goal was to identify chemicals with a high number of interactions with SA genes, based on known toxicogenomic responses.\n\nMethodsWe used reference SA (MeSH: D000022) and chemical gene lists from the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database in three species (human, mouse, and rat). We prioritized chemicals (n=25) found in maternal blood/urine samples or in groundwater, tap water, or Superfund sites. For chemical-disease gene sets of sufficient size (n=13 chemicals, n=20 comparisons), chi-squared enrichment tests and proportional reporting ratios (PRR) were calculated. We then cross-validated enrichment results. Finally, among the SA genes, we assessed enrichment for gene ontology biological processes and for chemicals associated with SA in humans, we visualized specific gene-chemical interactions.\n\nResultsThe number of unique genes annotated to a chemical ranged from 2 (bromacil) to 5,607 (atrazine), and 121 genes were annotated to SA. In humans, all chemicals tested were highly enriched for SA gene overlap (all p<0.001; parathion PRR=7, cadmium PRR=6.5, lead PRR=3.9, arsenic PRR=3.5, atrazine PRR=2.8). In mice, highest enrichment (p<0.001) was observed for naphthalene (PRR=16.1), cadmium (PRR=12.8), arsenic (PRR=11.6), and carbon tetrachloride (PRR=7.7). In rats, we observed highest enrichment (p<0.001) for cadmium (PRR=8.7), carbon tetrachloride (PRR=8.3), and dieldrin (PRR=5.3). Our findings were robust to 1,000 permutations each of gene sets ranging in size from 100 to 10,000. SA genes were overrepresented in biological processes: inflammatory response (q=0.001), collagen metabolic process (q=1x10-13), cell death (q=0.02), and vascular development (q=0.005).\n\nConclusionWe observed chemical gene sets (parathion, cadmium, naphthalene, carbon tetrachloride, arsenic, lead, dieldrin, and atrazine) were highly enriched for SA genes. Exposures to chemicals linked to SA, thus linked to probability of live birth, may deplete fetuses susceptible to adverse birth outcomes. Our findings have critical public health implications for successful pregnancies as well as the interpretation of environmental pregnancy cohort analyses.

pharmacology and toxicology↗