Monitoring of microbial dynamics in a drinking water distribution system using the culture-free, user-friendly, MYcrobiota platform.

ABSTRACT: Drinking water utilities currently rely on a range of microbiological detection techniques to evaluate the quality of their drinking water (DW). However, microbiota profiling using culture-free 16S rRNA gene next-generation sequencing (NGS) provides an opportunity for improved monitoring of the microbial ecology and quality of DW. Here, we evaluated the utility of a previously validated microbiota profiling platform (MYcrobiota) to investigate the microbial dynamics of a full-scale, non-chlorinated DW distribution system (DWDS). In contrast to conventional methods, we observed spatial and temporal bacterial genus changes (expressed as operational taxonomic units - OTUs) within the DWDS. Further, a small subset of bacterial OTUs dominated with abundances that shifted across the length of th

SUBMITTER: Boers SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6170421 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature