xist. E-mail: Yuanan Lu [email protected] Introduction Sewage-contaminated recreational water can pose numerous health risks to the public; effective water quality monitoring is therefore absolutely essential. Currently, microbiological water quality is primarily assessed via bacterial indicators such as enterococci, fecal coliform, and total coliform bacteria. However, these indicators often fail to reflect the presence of important hazardous viruses. This is of important concern, as viral pathogens shed in human feces may compromise public safety by polluting recreational waters that meet bacterial indicator standards. Additionally, these bacterial indicators may grow naturally in tropical environments, resulting in inaccurate assessment of water pollution levels. Therefore, alternative monitoring systems are needed to improve the surveillance of recreational waters and secure public protection from waterborne disease. Human enteric viruses, represented by the astroviruses, rotaviruses, noroviruses, adenoviruses, and picornaviruses, have been associated with many waterborne outbreaks and are suggested as alternative indicators of microbial water quality. Enteric viruses are primarily transmitted via the fecal-oral route, and viral particles are shed in extremely high numbers from ONX-0914 web infected individuals. Although most enteric virus infections are primarily associated with diarrhea and self-limiting gastroenteritis, they may also cause hepatitis, conjunctivitis, and respiratory infections. Additionally, in immunocompromised persons, enteric Detection of Enterovirus from Environmental Water negative results, presents an additional barrier. Detection challenges may be overcome by improved methods for viral concentration from water samples and by efficient inhibitor removal during nucleic acid extraction. Here, we have developed a highly optimized molecular protocol for the effective detection of enteroviruses from Hawaiian environmental waters. Enteroviruses, RNA viruses belonging to the Picornavirus family and consisting of coxsackievirus, poliovirus, echovirus, and the numbered enteroviruses, are the most commonly detected enteric viruses in polluted waters and are estimated to cause 30 50 million infections in the US annually. The EnV disease spectrum is wide, including gastroenteritis, respiratory infection, diabetes, heart disease, bronchiolitis, conjunctivitis, meningitis, paralysis, and the common cold. Because these viruses are common, fecally shed in extremely high numbers from infected individuals, highly tolerant to salinity and temperature fluctuations, and stable in the environment for extended time periods, they have been suggested as a parameter for evaluating viral pollution of environmental waters. The availability of permissive cell lines for determining EnV infectivity greatly enhances the attractiveness of using this important enteric virus subset as an ” alternative indicator of water quality. Additionally, in order to enhance viral concentration from environmental water samples, we briefly report the potential utilization of marine bivalves as bioindicators of water quality. ” Because these animals are filter feeders, they process large volumes of water daily, which causes viruses to accumulate within their tissues at a concentration higher than that in the surrounding water. Combining this natural bioconcentration phenomenon with our highly optimized RT-PCR protocol for EnV detection shows promising potential to aid in ef