Validation of Marburg Virus Inactivation by AVL Buffer

The removal of inactivated Marburg virus (MARV) material from a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) setting is a critical first step to enable downstream analyses at lower containment levels. The following method presents a highly sensitive approach for efficacy testing of virus inactivation without the loss of a low titer virus that may otherwise be masked by cytotoxic effects of the cells. This protocol outlines the procedure used to validate the inactivation of MARV samples for viral RNA extraction in cell culture, demonstrating accurate contact time needed for exposure, minimal loss of virus titers that may be present in minute quantities, and the removal of toxic elements to cells.