Journal
APPLIED AND ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 78, Issue 11, Pages 3932-3940Publisher
AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY
DOI: 10.1128/AEM.06600-11
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Funding
- National Research Initiative [200702085]
- National Institute of Food & Agriculture from the U.S. Department of Agriculture [2011-67017-30067, 2011-0494-13]
- NIFA [2011-67017-30067, 579790] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
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Human noroviruses (HuNoVs) are the leading cause of food-borne illness, accounting for 58% of U.S. cases. Because HuNoVs are unculturable, surrogates are needed to investigate transmission routes and evaluate disinfection methods. However, the current surrogates, feline calicivirus (FCV) and murine NoV (MNV), are less tolerant than HuNoVs to acid and chlorine, respectively. Porcine sapovirus (SaV) is the only culturable enteropathogenic calicivirus. In this study, the resistance of SaV to physicochemical treatments was compared to that of HuNoVs (by reverse transcription-PCR), FCV, and MNV (by infectivity assays). Sapovirus and HuNoV (viral RNA) showed similar resistances to heat (56 degrees C) and to different concentrations of chlorine. However, SaV was more resistant than HuNoVs to ethanol treatment (60% and 70%). Like HuNoVs, SaV was stable at pH 3.0 to 8.0, with a <1.0 log(10) 50% tissue culture infective dose (TCID50) reduction at pH 3.0 compared to the value for pH 4.0 to 8.0. SaV and MNV showed similar resistances, and both were more resistant than FCV to heat inactivation (56 degrees C). FCV was more resistant than MNV and SaV to ethanol, and all three viruses showed similar resistances to treatment with low concentrations of chlorine for 1 min. Those results indicate that SaV is a promising surrogate for HuNoVs. Next, we used SaV as a surrogate to examine virus attachment to lettuce at different pHs. Sapovirus attached to lettuce leaves significantly at its capsid isoelectric point (pH 5.0), and the attached viral particles remained infectious on lettuce after 1 week of storage at 4 degrees C. The culturable SaV is a good surrogate for studying HuNoV contamination and transmission in leafy greens and potential disinfectants.
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