Methods for Recovering Viruses from the Water Environment

Abstract

The major preoccupation of those who study viruses in water has been with the development of methods capable of detecting viruses in large volumes of water. This chapter focuses on the most promising and extensively used methods and the principles upon which the methods are based. Methods involving virus adsorption-elution from microporous filters continue to be the most promising and useful methods for concentrating viruses from large volumes of water. Positively charged microporous filters have been used recently to recover small amounts of seeded poliovirus and bacteriophages from drinking water. Viruses have been concentrated successfully from sewage and water by adsorption onto and elution from insoluble polyelectrolytes. For detection of viruses in small amounts of fluids, a one-step adsorption-elution procedure is often used. Methods involving microporous filters are the only ones which have been shown useful for concentrating viruses from large volumes of tapwater, sewage, seawater, and other types of natural waters.