Wastewater Testing Labs Can Automate Sample Processing for High Throughput With All-In-One Kit

New purification system launched by Promega includes Ceres Nanosciences’ Nanotrap® particles for virus concentration

Madison, WI USA. (January 25, 2023)

Wastewater testing labs can now scale up their infectious disease surveillance using two reliable technologies in a single kit. The new system released by Promega Corporation pairs the company’s Maxwell® HT chemistry with Ceres Nanosciences’ Nanotrap® particles, an established technology for capturing and concentrating low-abundance analytes such as viral particles. Together, these technologies empower labs to purify pathogen nucleic acids from wastewater samples in high-throughput workflows.

“Ceres has a technology that enables concentration of microbes from wastewater that is unique to the market,” says Brandon Krueger, Promega Field Support Scientist, “so it worked quite well for Promega and Ceres to join together to make this a better process overall for wastewater testing labs.” The new system joins a growing Promega portfolio of technologies used for wastewater-based epidemiology, including multiple workflows for purification and amplification of viral nucleic acids.

High-Throughput Wastewater Testing
Wastewater testing emerged as a critical public health tool during the COVID-19 pandemic. Viral particles found in sewage correlate strongly with infection rates, and often can be used to predict outbreaks up to a week before a rise in positive clinical tests. Many wastewater surveillance programs have expanded to include diseases such as polio, monkeypox and influenza.

Using the new kit offered by Promega, wastewater testing labs use the Ceres Nanotrap particles to concentrate viral particles present in wastewater samples. Next, labs use the established Maxwell® HT chemistry to purify nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. Those nucleic acids can then be amplified and detected using methods such as quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) or digital PCR (dPCR), or used in sequencing applications.

“As wastewater-based epidemiology has expanded, it has become clear that it is incredibly valuable to pair the reliable and easy-to-use Nanotrap particle concentration method with strong purification methods,” says Robbie Barbero, Ceres Chief Business Officer. “We are very excited that labs can now get the Promega Maxwell® HT chemistry and the Nanotrap technology in a single kit.”

The kit is designed to be implemented on a variety of automated liquid handlers, allowing labs to save time and resources by automating all necessary preprocessing and postprocessing for detecting viral nucleic acid from wastewater samples via qPCR. Promega Field Support Scientists offer comprehensive support for labs implementing Promega chemistry on any liquid handling platform, including robot programming and process optimization.

Promega Corporation is a global leader in providing high-quality solutions and technical support to the life science industry. Over its 44-year history, Promega has built a portfolio featuring more than 4,000 catalog and custom products supporting cellular and molecular biology. Today, bioluminescent and other technologies developed at Promega drive innovation in fields such as live cell analysis, drug discovery, molecular diagnostics and human identification and are used by scientists and technicians in labs for academic and government research, forensics, pharmaceuticals, clinical diagnostics and agricultural and environmental testing. Promega is headquartered in Madison, WI, USA with branches in 16 countries and over 50 global distributors. For more information, visit www.promega.com and connect with Promega on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and the Promega Connections blog.