Environmental persistence of Tulane virus — a surrogate for human norovirus

Abstract

Human noroviruses (HuNoVs) are the leading cause of acute viral gastroenteritis worldwide. The persistence of HuNoV in the environment contributes significantly to its transmission to humans. Surrogate viruses are used to study HuNoV owing to the lack of a cell culture system for this virus. Here, the persistence of Tulane virus (TV) - a novel HuNoV surrogate - in surface water (SW) and groundwater (GW) as well as on acrylic-based solid (ABS) and stainless steel (SS) surfaces was investigated. After 28 days, TV remained stable in SW (<1 log10 reduction) but was reduced by ≥3.5 to 4 log10 in GW by day 21. TV had a higher rate of reduction on SS compared with ABS, with corresponding D values of 18.5 ± 0.34 and 13.1 ± 0.36 days, respectively. This is the first study to demonstrate the persistence of TV in environmental waters and on fomite surfaces.

Sampling methods for recovery of human enteric viruses from environmental surfaces

“…Mattison et al (2007) recovered 11% of FCV from stainless steel after a 30 min drying time by vortexing for 30 s in EBSS eluent. Arthur and Gibson (2015) obtained recovery efficiencies of 10% and 30% for TuV from acrylic and stainless steel surfaces, respectively, after a drying time of 1 h using a cell scraping techniques. The cell scraping technique was confirmed as possible with TuV and has also been evaluated using FCV previously (Taku et al, 2002).…”

“…In fact, the International Organization of Standardization (2017) recommends hNoV sampling and detection on nonporous FCS to be collected with a cotton swab moistened with PBS followed by RNA extraction and reverse transcriptionquantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) analysis. Other tools and methods such as repeated pipetting, cell scraping, and sonication/stomaching have been used for viral persistence and disinfection studies (Arthur and Gibson 2015;Mattison, 2011;Yeargin et al, 2015).…”

“…This focus is a result of GII.4 being the pandemic genotype of hNoV and accounting for over 80% of all hNoV outbreaks in the U.S. since 1996 (Glass et al, 2009). Surrogates provide essential information on hNoV infectivity in relation to viral persistence on food contact surfaces (FCS), and numerous studies have shown FCV, MNV, and TuV to remain infectious on multiple surfaces for at least 7 days or more (Arthur and Gibson 2015;Fallahi and Mattison 2011;Mattison et al, 2007).…”

Norovirus GII.17: The Emergence and Global Prevalence of a Novel Variant

“…Our data suggest that the capsid of GII.17 virus is more stable and therefore, can persist longer in water samples. Interestingly, Arthur et al demonstrated that Tulane virus (a novel human NoV surrogate) also remained stable in surface water (<1 log10 reduction) after 28 days; however, viral load reduced from ≥3.5 to 4 log10 in groundwater by day 21 [56]. Consequently, improving surveillance and systematic monitoring of environmental water samples could provide valuable information on viral circulation and enable further assessment of the emergence of novel NoVs at an earlier stage.…”

A Narrative Review of Norovirus Gastroenteritis: More Global Attention Is Needed

“…To date, most of the data on NoV comes from the study of surrogates, such as MNV, feline calicivirus (FCV), and Tulane virus (TV). [26][27][28] MNV has become the most frequently used NoV surrogate as it is the only NoV with a cell culture system and small animal model. TV also has broad uses as a surrogate since it has similar genetic identity to NoVs and recognizes histoblood group antigens (HBGA).…”