Development of wide-field proteomics methods for water fingerprinting applied to public health

Proteomic analysis of serum and urine is well established for identification of biomarkers of disease. Most notably for cancer markers such as increases in prostate specific antigen (PSA) but also for biomarkers of inflammation, such as C-reactive protein (CRP). These methods are man power-intensive in acquisition and analysis of samples, as a result of the need for individual samples from thousands of study participants. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a growing field that aims to survey larger populations with more streamlined analyses. WBE approach has been applied previously to study small molecules, determining the spatial and temporal differences in the use of drugs of abuse, for example. However, the approach being applied to identification of protein material is yet to be explored. The following project aims to develop a non-biased and wide reaching method for proteomic analysis of wastewater directed towards community-wide public health concerns, such as spread of infection. Protein components are to be separated from other material present in wastewater, enzymatically digested and analysed using liquid chromatography in conjunction with highresolution (Quadrupole-Time-of-Flight, QToF) mass spectrometry. Such a method provides unique advantages in that data is not biased, is able to identify a large array of species simultaneously and can be retrospectively re-analysed following future identification of new biomarkers. Early phases of the project will focus on identification and quantitation of clinically recognised proteins related to inflammation/infection responses and potentially progress to identification of species from a large database.
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