Wastewater fingerprinting for public health assessment: Proteomic approach

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has recently been established as a useful tool to verify public health status. In brief, a wastewater sample is collected at the influent of a wastewater treatment plant and analysed for wide range chemical substances related to exposure studies.
This approach has been successfully validated and applied to monitor substances of abuse in large scale studies across the globe and to measure the concentrations of several pharmaceuticals, metabolites, and personal care products.
However, there also exists the possibility to adapt this approach for the analysis of a spectrum of endogenous biomarkers for stress and disease (e.g., proteins, sugars, lipids, and nucleosides), specifically, proteins, to evaluate the state of public health.