A plate-based histo-blood group antigen binding assay for evaluation of human norovirus receptor binding ability

Human norovirus is a leading cause of gastroenteritis worldwide. Although two in vitro cultivation methods have been reported, they cannot provide mechanistic insights into viral inactivation. Receptor-binding assays supplement these assays and give insight into capsid integrity. We present a streamlined version of a receptor-binding assay with minimal time-to-result while maintaining accuracy and high throughput. We validate assay performance for physical and chemical inactivation treatments of a norovirus GII.4 capsid. The assay produces a high positive/negative ratio (25.3 ± 4.9) in <2.5 h and has a limit of detection of 0.1 μg/ml capsid. This method is a valuable additional tool for understanding human norovirus inactivation.