Methacrylate monolith chromatography as a tool for waterborne virus removal

Abstract

Enteric viruses are commonly present in environmental waters and represent the major cause of waterborne infections and outbreaks. Since traditional wastewater treatments fail to remove enteric viruses in the water purification process, they are released daily into environmental waters. Monolithic supports have enabled chromatography to enter the field of virology. They have been successfully used in virus purification and concentration. In this work quaternary amine (QA) methacrylate monoliths were exploited to remove enteric viruses from wastewater treatment plant effluent. Expectedly, chromatographic processing of such a complex medium was troublesome, even for monoliths, characterized by extremely large pore dimensions. This problem was solved by introducing a pre-step chromatography using hydroxyl (OH) methacrylate monoliths. This way, molecules, that would hinder virus binding to the anion-exchanger monolith, were removed. As a result, the OH pre-column reduced backpressure increase on the subsequent anion-exchanger column, and increased both QA column binding capacity and life time. Wastewater effluent samples were successfully purified from five waterborne enteric viruses (rotavirus, norovirus genogroup I and II, astrovirus, sapovirus), below the detection limit of RT-qPCR. The breakthrough of the rotavirus binding capacity was not reached for concentrations that significantly exceeded those expected in effluent waters. The obtained results confirm that methacrylate monoliths can be a valuable tool for simultaneous removal of different waterborne viruses from contaminated water sources.

Polymer monoliths for the concentration of viruses from environmental waters: A review

“…Coupling columns with orthogonal retention mechanisms in-tandem (hydrophobic and anion exchange) removed interferences to the anion exchange mode, decreased the pressure build-up along the loading step, and enhanced the columns' lifetime [71]. Coupling orthogonal retention chemistries in MAF is possible, but this feature still is to be experimentally demonstrated.…”

“…Even with the large flow-through pores of MAF (15-20 μm), the flow rate had to be limited to 0.57 L/min to prevent clogging [65]. The methacrylatebased methods adopted the 0.8 μm pre-filter to exclude bacteria and suspended matter that clogs the monoliths and demands lower flow rates to process large sample volumes [31,71].…”

Application of monolithic chromatographic supports in virus research

“…Such efficient binding of enteric viruses to monoliths has been exploited in an up‐side‐down achievement to actually purify wastewater treatment plant effluent from five waterborne enteric viruses . Following optimization using analytical discs, a large (8 mL) methacrylate column was used as a valuable tool for simultaneous removal of different viruses from a large quantity of contaminated water.…”

Methacrylate Polymer Monoliths for Separation Applications

“…Rački et al [152] reported the removal of viruses from a wastewater sample using a methacrylate monolith functionalized with quaternary amine moieties. Purification of the water samples from the 5 enteric viruses tested was achieved to a level where the viruses were not detected using Real Time-quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR).…”