Detection of human enteric viruses in oysters by in vivo and in vitro amplification of nucleic acids.

This study describes the detection of enteroviruses and hepatitis A virus in 31 naturally contaminated oyster specimens by nucleic acid amplification and oligonucleotide probing. Viruses were extracted by adsorption-elution-precipitation from 50-g oyster samples harvested from an area receiving sewage effluent discharge. Ninety percent of each extract was inoculated into primate kidney cell cultures for virus isolation and infectivity assay. Viruses in the remaining 10% of oyster extract that was not inoculated into cell cultures were further purified and concentrated by a procedure involving Freon extraction, polyethylene glycol precipitation, and Pro-Cipitate precipitation. After 3 to 4 weeks of incubation, RNA was extracted from inoculated cultures that were negative for cytopathic effects (CPE). These RNA extracts and the RNA from virions purified and concentrated directly from oyster extracts were subjected to reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) with primer pairs for human enteroviruses and hepatitis A virus. The resulting amplicons were confirmed by internal oligonucleotide probe hybridization. For the portions of oyster sample extracts inoculated into cell cultures, 12 (39%) were positive for human enteroviruses by CPE and 6 (19%) were positive by RT-PCR and oligoprobing of RNA extracts from CPE-negative cell cultures. For the remaining sample portions tested by direct RT-PCR and oligoprobing after further concentration, five (about 16%) were confirmed to be positive for human enteroviruses. Hepatitis A virus was also detected in RNA extracts of two CPE-positive samples by RT-PCR and oligoprobing. Combining the data from all three methods, enteric viruses were detected in 18 of 31 (58%) samples. Detection by nucleic acid methods increased the number of positive samples by 50% over detection by CPE in cell culture. Hence, nucleic acid amplification methods increase the detection of noncytopathic human enteric viruses in oysters.