Comparison study on three protocols used to concentrate poliovirus type 1 from drinking water.

The efficiency of three techniques used to concentrate enteric viruses from water media and based on adsorption-elution on glass are tested. The techniques are adsorption on glass wool (GW) at the natural pH of the water and adsorption on glass powder using acidified water (pH 3.5). In the second case, two devices are used the classical apparatus (CGP) and the modified apparatus (MGP). A solution of glycine 0.05 M--3% beef extract pH 9.5 is used in all three techniques to perform the elution. The sensitivity of the above concentration methods is assayed with samples of 20 liters of tap water artificially contaminated with a known quantity of poliovirus type 1 (10(1) to 10(7) MPNCU [20 L]-1). The resulting concentrates are inoculated to BGM cell cultures and tittered according to the MPN technique. The study demonstrated that the recovery rate increased with the viral concentration of the samples with maximum efficiency reaching 81% for GW, 89% for CGP and 99% for MGP. A Wilcoxon test performed on paired samples and on the overall results with all three methods. Significant differences were demonstrated leading to the ranking of the techniques in the growing order of sensitivity GW, CGP and MGP. These finding were confirmed using a fitting technique according to the algorithm of Marquardt.