Alternative methods to determine infectivity of Tulane virus: a surrogate for human nororvirus

Culturable animal caliciviruses are widely-used as surrogates for human norovirus (HuNoV). The infectivity of a culturable virus was traditionally determined by plaque assay and/or 50% tissue culture infectious dose (TCID50) assay, both of which are time-consuming and labor-intensive. Molecular approaches, such as quantitative real time RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) and RT-PCR, could be used for detection of the viral genome but yet fail to determine the infectivity of a virus. In this study, we evaluated different assays for determination of infectivity of Tulane virus (TV), a surrogate for HuNoV. The infectivity of TV was measured by RNase exposure assay, RT-PCR assays, cellular-receptor-mediated capture qRT-PCR assay, receptor-mediated in situ capture qRT-PCR assay, cell-culture-mediated amplification qRT-PCR, and confirmed by TCID50 assay. RNase exposure assay was only useful for measuring TV inactivation caused by heat. Short template RT-PCR assay did not reflect inactivation status of TV. Partial reduction in viral RNA signal could be measured by long-template RT-PCR only when TV was inactivated by thermal or chlorine treatments at full-inactivation levels. Cellular-receptor-mediated capture qRT-PCR exhibited low sensitivity and specificity for the evaluation of virus infectivity. The in situ capture qRT-PCR assay could be used to evaluate virus inactivation deriving from damage to viral capsid caused by heat and chlorine. The cell-culture-mediated amplification qRT-PCR could be used as an alternative method to rapidly determine the infectivity of TV.