Rapid Method to Quantify the Antiviral Potential of Porous and Nonporous Material Using the Enveloped Bacteriophage Phi6

Abstract

The pandemic revealed significant gaps in our understanding of the antiviral potential of porous textiles used for personal protective equipment and nonporous touch surfaces. What is the fate of a microbe when it encounters an abiotic surface? How can we change the microenvironment of materials to improve antimicrobial properties? Filling these gaps requires increasing data generation throughput. A method to accomplish this leverages the use of the enveloped bacteriophage ϕ6, an adjustable spacing multichannel pipette, and the statistical design opportunities inherent in the ordered array of the 24-well culture plate format, resulting in a semi-automated small drop assay. For 100 mm2 nonporous coupons of Cu and Zn, the reduction in ϕ6 infectivity fits first-order kinetics, resulting in half-lives (T 50) of 4.2 ± 0.1 and 29.4 ± 1.6 min, respectively. In contrast, exposure to stainless steel has no significant effect on infectivity. For porous textiles, differences associated with composition, color, and surface treatment of samples are detected within 5 min of exposure. Half-lives for differently dyed Zn-containing fabrics from commercially available masks ranged from 2.1 ± 0.05 to 9.4 ± 0.2 min. A path toward full automation and the application of machine learning techniques to guide combinatorial material engineering is presented.

Functional Textile Materials for Blocking COVID-19 Transmission

“…This situation inevitably leads to difficulty in comparing the antiviral activities reported in different reports, which was pointed out by Camero as well that the resistance behaviors of a virus family against chemical and physical reagents are significantly characteristic and quite different than other families. Although there was one method for determining the antiviral activity of textiles has been reported by the International Standards Organization (ISO), it was rarely used in the reports perhaps due to its high limitations: for example, only plaque assay or TCID 50 results are obtainable under the conditions of influenza virus or feline calicivirus as the target . In conclusion, the evaluation of antiviral textiles should be improved and standardized, while researchers are encouraged to provide baselines of intralaboratory and interlaboratory repeatability to establish a comparable database that can promote the development of antiviral textiles globally.…”

“…Although there was one method for determining the antiviral activity of textiles has been reported by the International Standards Organization (ISO), 109 it was rarely used in the reports perhaps due to its high limitations: for example, only plaque assay or TCID 50 results are obtainable under the conditions of influenza virus or feline calicivirus as the target. 248 In conclusion, the evaluation of antiviral textiles should be improved and standardized, while researchers are encouraged to provide baselines of intralaboratory and interlaboratory repeatability to establish a comparable database that can promote the development of antiviral textiles globally.…”