Concentration of plant viruses using monolithic chromatographic supports.

A new chromatographic medium, Convective Interaction Media(CIM) disk monolithic columns, was applied to plant virus concentration. The ability of the columns to concentrate highly diluted plant viruses was tested on a model plant virus, rod-shaped tomato mosaic virus (ToMV). Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used for the quantitative analysis. The virus was concentrated using a strong anion exchanger, CIM quaternary amine (QA) disk monolithic column. A high salt concentration was used to elute the concentrated virus from the columns. It has been demonstrated that ToMV, which had been diluted considerably below the sensitivity of ELISA, was concentrated by several orders of magnitude in the one-step procedure. Concentrated virus preparations could be used directly for ELISA testing. In comparison with methods described for concentrating plant viruses from irrigation water, the above procedure may provide a much faster and more efficient way to concentrate highly diluted plant viruses. The procedure could be applied to the testing of other highly diluted plant viruses, and to concentrating viruses for antiserum production.