Purification of Channel Catfish virus, a fish herpesvirus.

Channel Catfish virus was highly purified from host cells by precipitation with PEG-6000 and isopycnic centrifugation in a metrizamide gradient. As calculated from reconstruction experiments, only 0.09 and 0.05% respectively of the host DNA and the host proteins were recovered at the position of the viral band. The final recovery of infectivity was about 30%. Electron microscopy showed mostly intact viral particles.