Aquavalens

TZW participation in a large EU funded research project.

Meeting of the consortium

Although most European countries have clean drinking water, water-related outbreaks of disease occur recurrent. For this reason, the Aquavalens project, supported by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union, aimed to develop rapid detection methods for viruses, bacteria and parasites in water.

The EU Aquavalens project was completed in early 2018. This large joint project aimed at the development of molecular biological methods for the detection of viruses, bacteria and protozoa in water analysis up to application maturity. 38 partners from small companies, universities and research institutes formed the Aquavalens consortium. The five-year project consisted of four phases. The first phase focused on the molecular aspects of pathogens. The second phase focused on the development of improved detection technologies for microorganisms. These techniques were then applied in Phase 3 in large and small water utilities and in the food industry. In the fourth phase, the newly acquired knowledge was used to develop strategies for the protection of human health and the environment including climate change. The Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology of the TZW played a major role in the development of various work packages such as "Microbial Source Tracking". In addition, the central work package for the standardization and validation of the newly developed molecular detection methods was coordinated by the TZW. Within this work package the practical suitability of enrichment and detection methods was tested. For a sensitive molecular biological detection of microorganisms in water, large water volumes have to be enriched. Ultrafiltration methods are one possibility. The Aquavalens results showed that ultrafiltration allows a parallel enrichment of viruses, bacteria and protozoa with a high recovery. In addition, the validation of the complete systems developed by Aquavalens demonstrated the great potential of PCR-based detection methods. The PCR-based systems enabled a fast, cultivation-independent, specific and quantitative detection of pathogenic viruses, bacteria and protozoa.

Publications

Hügler M., Stange C., Ho J., Tiehm A.:  Molekularbiologische Methoden – Trends und Entwicklungen. In: Entwicklungstrends für die Wasserversorgung, Veröffentlichungen aus dem Technologiezentrum Wasser Karlsruhe, ISSN 1434-5765, TZW-Band 80: 45-63 (2017)

Ho J., Seidel M., Niessner R., Eggert J., Tiehm A.:  Long amplicon (LA)-qPCR for the discrimination of infectious and noninfectious phiX174 bacteriophages after UV inactivation. Water Research 103: 141-148 (2016) DOI 10.1016/j.watres.2016.07.032

Aquavalens. Final report summary. Available under https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/311846/reporting

The volumes of the TZW publications can be ordered here.

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