Browsing by Author "Singh, Suniti"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Can wastewater monitoring protect public health in schools?
    (Elsevier, 2023-03-16) Hassard, Francis; Singh, Suniti; Coulon, Frederic; Yang, Zhugen
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    Coliphages as viral indicators of sanitary significance for drinking water
    (Frontiers, 2022-07-26) Singh, Suniti; Pitchers, Robert; Hassard, Francis
    Coliphages are virus that infect coliform bacteria and are used in aquatic systems for risk assessment for human enteric viruses. This mini-review appraises the types and sources of coliphage and their fate and behavior in source waters and engineered drinking water treatment systems. Somatic (cell wall infection) and F+ (male specific) coliphages are abundant in drinking water sources and are used as indicators of fecal contamination. Coliphage abundances do not consistently correlate to human enteric virus abundance, but they suitably reflect the risks of exposure to human enteric viruses. Coliphages have highly variable surface characteristics with respect to morphology, size, charge, isoelectric point, and hydrophobicity which together interact to govern partitioning and removal characteristics during water treatment. The groups somatic and F+ coliphages are valuable for investigating the virus elimination during water treatment steps and as indicators for viral water quality assessment. Strain level analyses (e.g., Qβ or GA-like) provide more information about specific sources of viral pollution but are impractical for routine monitoring. Consistent links between rapid online monitoring tools (e.g., turbidity, particle counters, and flow cytometry) and phages in drinking water have yet to be established but are recommended as a future area of research activity. This could enable the real-time monitoring of virus and improve the process understanding during transient operational events. Exciting future prospects for the use of coliphages in aquatic microbiology are also discussed based on current scientific evidence and practical needs.
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    Molecular insights informing factors affecting low temperature anaerobic applications: diversity, collated core microbiomes and complexity stability relationships in LCFA-fed systems
    (Elsevier, 2023-03-02) Singh, Suniti; Keating, Ciara; Ijaz, Umer Zeeshan; Hassard, Francis
    Fats, oil and grease, and their hydrolyzed counterparts-long chain fatty acids (LCFA) make up a large fraction of numerous wastewaters and are challenging to degrade anaerobically, more so, in low temperature anaerobic digestion (LtAD) systems. Herein, we perform a comparative analysis of publicly available Illumina 16S rRNA datasets generated from LCFA-degrading anaerobic microbiomes at low temperatures (10 and 20 °C) to comprehend the factors affecting microbial community dynamics. The various factors considered were the inoculum, substrate and operational characteristics, the reactor operation mode and reactor configuration, and the type of nucleic acid sequenced. We found that LCFA-degrading anaerobic microbiomes were differentiated primarily by inoculum characteristics (inoculum source and morphology) in comparison to the other factors tested. Inoculum characteristics prominently shaped the species richness, species evenness and beta-diversity patterns in the microbiomes even after long term operation of continuous reactors up to 150 days, implying the choice of inoculum needs careful consideration. The generalised additive models represented through beta diversity contour plots revealed that psychrophilic bacteria RBG-13-54-9 from family Anaerolineae, and taxa WCHB1–41 and Williamwhitmania were highly abundant in LCFA-fed microbial niches, suggesting their role in anaerobic treatment of LCFAs at low temperatures of 10–20 °C. Overall, we showed that the following bacterial genera: uncultured Propionibacteriaceae, Longilinea, Christensenellaceae R7 group, Lactivibrio, candidatus Caldatribacterium, Aminicenantales, Syntrophus, Syntrophomonas, Smithella, RBG-13-54-9, WCHB1–41, Trichococcus, Proteiniclasticum, SBR1031, Lutibacter and Lentimicrobium have prominent roles in LtAD of LCFA-rich wastewaters at 10–20 °C. This study provides molecular insights of anaerobic LCFA degradation under low temperatures from collated datasets and will aid in improving LtAD systems for treating LCFA-rich wastewaters.
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    Viruses in raw and treated potable waters: prevalence and monitoring methods data
    (Cranfield University, 2024-02-19 10:46) Singh, Suniti; Jarvis, Peter; Jefferson, Bruce; Hassard, Francis
    Data associated with the above named manuscript