32nd International Dynamics & Evolution of Human Viruses

WASTEWATER-BASED GENOMIC SURVEILLANCE OF RESPIRATORIAL SYNCYTIAL VIRUS

Not scheduled

20m

Abbaye de Royaumont, Asnières-sur-Oise, France

Poster Genomics & bioinformatics Virtual posters

Speaker

Auguste Rimaite (1. Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich; 2. SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics)

Description

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a highly contagious, enveloped, single-stranded RNA respiratory virus that primarily causes mild, cold-like symptoms. However, it can lead to severe illness, hospitalization, or death in infants and immunocompromised individuals. RSV is classified into two subtypes, RSV-A and RSV-B, with one subtype typically dominating a given season that begins in the fall and peaks in the winter months. In Switzerland, the dynamics of RSV infections have been tracked through wastewater monitoring, revealing that RSV viral loads in wastewater correspond to patterns in clinical incidence numbers.
We adapted an amplicon-based RSV sequencing method, originally designed for sequencing nearly full-length RSV genomes from clinical samples, for use with wastewater extracts. Using this approach, we sequenced 28 wastewater time-series samples from Zurich and Geneva during the RSV-B predominant season (2022/2023) and 36 wastewater time-series samples from the RSV-A predominant season (2023/2024).
Data was analyzed using viral NGS data analysis software V-pipe, revealing mutations consistent with known RSV lineage-defining signature mutations. In addition, time-series patterns of relative abundances of circulating RSV lineages were inferred from mutation frequencies.
We found that among the known RSV-B lineages in the season 2022/2023, B.D.E.1, which is the most prevalent recently circulating RSV-B lineage globally, shared the highest number of mutations with sequences from wastewater samples, and the relative abundance of B.D.E.1 remained near 100% over the whole season. In contrast, during 2023/2024, mutations from multiple RSV-A lineages were tracked, including A.D.1, A.D.3 and A.D.5 – derived sub-lineages.
Wastewater-based RSV monitoring offers valuable insights into the temporal dynamics of circulating RSV strains and lineages, especially in the context of vaccine implementation. Furthermore, tracking F gene mutations in wastewater samples may inform on emerging resistance to vaccines and passive immunization products.