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Alternative In Vitro Methods for the Determination of Viral Capsid Structural Integrity
Published on: November 16, 2017
Differences in the effectiveness of the high-efficient concentrated pretreatment method on the norovirus detection in
Yijing Li1, Liang Xue2, Junshan Gao2
1College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510632, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Microbial Safety and Health, State Key Laboratory of Applied Microbiology Southern China, Institute of Microbiology, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiomics and Precision Application, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510070, China.
Abstract:
Oysters and mussels are important vectors for norovirus (NoV). An efficient pretreatment method for NoV detection in oysters based on ISO 15216-2:2019 was established in our previous work, but its effectiveness for other types of shellfish remains unknown. Therefore, this study systematically compared the differences between the standard and modified ISO methods in detecting NoV for oysters and mussels. Using the standard ISO method, the recovery rates of NoV in oysters (2.10 ± 0.80 %) and mussels (2.39 ± 0.56 %) were comparable (p > 0.05, unpaired t-test). In contrast, the virus recovery rates in oysters (19.83 ± 3.64 %) and mussels (46.96 ± 3.55 %) were both significantly improved by the modified method. Also, a significant difference was found between the virus recovery rates in two shellfish (p < 0.05, unpaired t-test), resulting in a 2.09-fold difference in their virus concentrations. Additionally, the limits of detection at 95 % probability of the modified ISO method for oysters and mussels could both reach 3.33 × 103 copies/g of digestive glands. Finally, the modified ISO method has been successfully applied in commercial oysters (14/27, 51.85 %) and mussels (15/23, 65.22 %), and the results indicated a significant difference in NoV recovery rates between two shellfish (p < 0.05, one-way analysis of variance). In summary, the modified ISO method showed higher virus recovery rates than the standard ISO method, which would be used as an essential tool for NoV detection in oysters and mussels.

