Short communication: Evaluation of charged membrane filters and buffers for concentration and recovery of infectious salmon anaemia virus in seawater.

• Published in: PLOS ONE
• Main Authors: Simon Chioma Weli, Haitham Tartor, Bjørn Spilsberg, Ole Bendik Dale, Atle Lillehaug
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
• Subjects: Medicine; R; Science; Q; Atlantic salmon
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253297; https://doaj.org/article/5aea3e9baf3e483f98dd9a65c3085f81

Infectious salmon anaemia virus (ISAV) is the cause of an important waterborne disease of farmed Atlantic salmon. Detection of virus in water samples may constitute an alternative method to sacrificing fish for surveillance of fish populations for the presence of ISA-virus. We aimed to evaluate different membrane filters and buffers for concentration and recovery of ISAV in seawater, prior to molecular detection. One litre each of artificial and natural seawater was spiked with ISAV, followed by concentration with different filters and subsequent elution with different buffers. The negatively charged MF hydrophilic membrane filter, combined with NucliSENS® lysis buffer, presented the highest ISAV recovery percentages with 12.5 ± 1.3% by RT-qPCR and 31.7 ± 10.7% by RT-ddPCR. For the positively charged 1 MDS Zeta Plus® Virosorb® membrane filter, combined with NucliSENS® lysis buffer, the ISAV recovery percentages were 3.4 ± 0.1% by RT-qPCR and 10.8 ± 14.2% by RT-ddPCR. The limits of quantification (LOQ) were estimated to be 2.2 x 103 ISAV copies/L of natural seawater for both RT-qPCR and RT-ddPCR. The ISAV concentration method was more efficient in natural seawater.