Concentration and Detection of Legionella pneumophila using Nanotrap Microbiome Particles for Enhanced Water Safety Testing

Caryn Tyler
Jul 2
1 min read

Drinking water treatment aims to stabilize bacterial communities in drinking water and to remove human pathogens from the system. Legionella pneumophila, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Mycobacterium abscessus are common pathogens in the United States that can be found in drinking water. These organisms can persist despite disinfection, colonize plumbing, and proliferate under various temperature and flow conditions. Effective monitoring is crucial for public health protection and responding to outbreaks.

Water monitoring methods typically include a concentration step, as the microbial load in drinking water is low. Centrifugation and filtration methods have traditionally been used in these workflows; however, these are very manual

processes and are difficult to scale up in situations where high levels of testing are required. To address these limitations, we utilized Nanotrap® Microbiome Particles, magnetic hydrogel nanoparticles previously validated in wastewater and clinical matrices(1), as an alternative concentration strategy for pathogen detection in tap water. Their

use was assessed across multiple downstream analytical workflows, including dPCR, metagenomic sequencing, and culturing.