Abstract：
Naegleria fowleri has been detected in drinking water distribution systems (DWDS) in Australia, Pakistan and the United States and is the causative agent of the highly fatal disease primary amoebic meningoencephalitis. Previous small scale field studies have shown that Meiothermus may be a potential biomarker for N. fowleri. However, correlations between predictive biomarkers in small sample sizes often breakdown when applied to larger more representative datasets. This study represents one of the largest and most rigorous temporal investigations of Naegleria fowleri colonisation in an operational DWDS in the world and measured the association of Meiothermus and N. fowleri over a significantly larger space and time in the DWDS. A total of 232 samples were collected from five sites over three-years (2016-2018), which contained 29 positive N. fowleri samples. Two specific operational taxonomic units assigned to M. chliarophilus and M. hypogaeus, were significantly associated with N. fowleri presence. Furthermore, inoculation experiments demonstrated that Meiothermus was required to support N. fowleri growth in field-collected biofilms. This validates Meiothermus as prospective biological tool to aid in the identification and surveillance of N. fowleri colonisable sites.
摘要：
在澳大利亚的饮用水分配系统（DWDS）中检测到Naegleriafowleri，巴基斯坦和美国又是原发性阿米巴脑膜脑炎的致命性疾病的致病原。先前的小规模野外研究表明，Meiothermus可能是家禽N.fowleri的潜在生物标志物。然而,当应用于更大的更具代表性的数据集时，小样本量的预测性生物标志物之间的相关性通常会崩溃。这项研究代表了世界上在可操作的DWDS中对Naegleriafowleri定殖的最大，最严格的时间调查之一，并在DWDS中的更大空间和时间内测量了Meiothermus和N.fowleri的关联。历时三年（2016-2018年），共从五个地点收集了232个样本，其中包含29个阳性N.fowleri样本。两个特定的操作分类单位分配给鸡只M.chliarophilus和M.hypogaus，与N.fowleri的存在显着相关。此外，接种实验表明，在野外收集的生物膜中，需要Meiothermus来支持N.fowleri的生长。这验证了Meiothermus作为前瞻性生物学工具，以帮助鉴定和监视鸡的可定居地点。
