Stability of and Attachment to Lettuce by a Culturable Porcine Sapovirus Surrogate for Human Caliciviruses Qiuhong Wang, Zhenwen Zhang, and Linda J. Saif Food Animal Health Research Program, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine, The Ohio State University, Wooster, Ohio, USA
Human noroviruses (HuNoVs) are the leading cause of food-borne illness, accounting for 58% of U.S. cases. Because HuNoVs are unculturable, surrogates are needed to investigate transmission routes and evaluate disinfection methods. However, the current surrogates, feline calicivirus (FCV) and murine NoV (MNV), are less tolerant than HuNoVs to acid and chlorine, respectively. Porcine sapovirus (SaV) is the only culturable enteropathogenic calicivirus. In this study, the resistance of SaV to physicochemical treatments was compared to that of HuNoVs (by reverse transcription-PCR), FCV, and MNV (by infectivity assays). Sapovirus and HuNoV (viral RNA) showed similar resistances to heat (56°C) and to different concentrations of chlorine. However, SaV was more resistant than HuNoVs to ethanol treatment (60% and 70%). Like HuNoVs, SaV was stable at pH 3.0 to 8.0, with a
