Concentration and purification of poliovirus by ultrafiltration and isopycnic centrifugation

A method is described by which poliovirus can be rapidly and simply concentrated by the use of a Diaflo XM-50 ultrafilter membrane. Freon-extracted ultrafilter concentrates banded in CsCl provided a 1,724-fold volumetric concentration of poliovirus. During concentration, trypsin-digested cellular material can pass through the ultrafilter membrane, thus providing a versatile means of degrading and eliminating extraneous contaminating proteins. The ultrafilter concentration system is compared with the CsCl cushion system of poliovirus concentration, and both systems are further compared by banding virus and virus capsid material in CsCl by use of isopycnic centrifugation.