The development of a membrane filtration-elution method for the concentration and enumeration of enteroviruses from seeded tap water samples

Abstract

A membrane filtration-swirling elution (MF-SE) method, previously developed for the concentration and enumeration of bacteriophages from water, was applied to enterovirus enumeration. Using Sabin poliovirus type 1 as the seed in sterile tap water samples, the efficiency of the method for each of two volumes - 100 ml and 1 L - was determined. The method was found to give recoveries of 98.9% and 68.8% for these volumes respectively. Application of the method to 10 L samples resulted in host cell toxicity possibly due to tap water constituents. In comparison to a standard membrane filtration method (APHA, 1995), the MF-SE method was found to have the advantages of simplicity and speed with sample assay time being greatly reduced as no eluent reconcentration step was needed.