Alteration of viral infectious behavior by surface active agents

Phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and wastewater retentate, which had been adjusted to the same level of pH and ionic strength by addition of a concentrated PBS solution, were experimentally seeded with polio- or parvovirus and treated with various concentrations of sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) and dodecyltrimethylammoniumbromid (DTAB), respectively. Upon subsequent assessment for viral infectivity of the samples in Buffalo green monkey kidney cell cultures, infectivity modulating effects of DTAB in PBS and of SDS in retentate appeared to be largely affected by the electrical charge of the suspended virions. However, if PBS or retentate samples were treated with SDS or DTAB respectively, different isoelectric properties between polio- and parvovirus particles were less likely to affect the detergent concentration required for optimal virus recovery. Moreover, in the presence of soluble organics, optimal virus recovery rates were obtained with much lower detergent concentrations if the samples had been treated with DTAB instead of SDS. Measurement of the effective critical micelle concentration as well as multiangle electrophoretic light scattering (MELS) seemed to provide a simple approach to monitoring colloidal stability of multicomponent viral particle (VP) suspensions upon the addition of ionic detergents. By measuring zeta potential distribution, MELS offers additional information about alterations to electrical viral surface properties. Since the behavior of VPs is well known to largely depend upon their electrical characteristics within the environment in which they exist, there is substantial evidence that MELS can provide valuable guidelines in studying optimal detergent-treatment conditions for virus recovery from aqueous suspensions.