Strategies

The project has been conceived to bring together five groups which expertise are complementary.

1. JRC, scientific responsible of the project has experiences in molecular ecology and chemical analysis and provides contribution in several tasks, water sampling in collaboration with the partner CNR-IRSA, chemical analysis, characterization of microbial community (metagenomics), primers design for qPCR in collaboration with LGC.

2. CNR-IRSA coordinator of the project has a long experience in Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) method applying 16S rRNA probes on water samples in collaboration with NTBC. New FISH probes will be designed based on knowledge acquired by metagenomics analysis (a seconded staff will move to LGC). Moreover, CNR-IRSA will developed in collaboration with JRC a pre-concentrated system (affinity chromatography) to the qPCR to target species at very low concentration as early warning system.

3. MBA partner has long experiences in phylogenies’ analysis. Knowledge of microarray hybridization has been transferred for pathogens freshwaters monitoring moving to LGC. MBA will also be involved in designing primers for qPCR plate for validation of RNA microarray. Furthermore knowledge on RNA microarray will be transferred to NTBC to contribute to new FISH primer design.

4. LGC partner is an international leader in the laboratory services, measurement standards, reference materials and market places. LGC has a Molecular Biology division which contributes to the sequencing of water samples to analyze the microbial community (metagenomics) and design primers for qPCR moving to JRC. It will explore together with JRC the ready-to use plate design.

5. NTBC partner is an SME focused on water quality developing several detection methods. It contributes to FISH method and facilitates the market exploration. NTBC moving to CNR-IRSA at beginning of the project will characterize the water sample by using existing 16s rRNA probe while within the project NTBC will acquire knowledge to develop new probes for FISH in collaboration with CNR-IRSA.