Assessment of different factors on the influence of glass wool concentration for detection of main swine viruses in water samples

Viruses existed in wastewaters might pose a biosecurity risk to human and animal health. However, it is generally difficult to detect viruses in wastewater directly as they usually occur in low numbers in water. Therefore, processing large volumes of water to concentrate viruses in a much smaller final volume for detection is necessary. Glass wool has been recognized as an effective material to concentrate multiple in water, and in this study, we assessed the use of glass wools on concentrating pseudorabies virus (PRV), African swine fever virus (ASFV), and porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) in water samples. The influence of pH values, water matrix, water volume, filtration rate, temperature on the effect of the method concentrating these viruses for detection was evaluated in laboratory. Our results revealed that glass wool was suitable for the concentration of above-mentioned viruses from different water samples, and demonstrated a good application effect for water with pH between 6.0–9.0. Furthermore, glass wool also showed a good recovery effect on concentrating viral nucleic acids and viral particles, as well as living viruses. In addition, combining use of glass wool with skim milk, polyethylene glycol (PEG)-NaCl, or ultracentrifuge had good effects on concentrating ASFV, PRV, and PEDV. Detection of wastewater samples (n = 70) collected from 70 pig farms in 13 regions across Hubei Province in Central China after glass-wool-concentration determined one sample positive for ASFV, eighteen samples positive for PRV, but no sample positive for PEDV. However, these positive samples were detected to be negative before glass wool enrichment was implemented. Our results suggest that glass wool-based water concentration method developed in this study represents an effective tool for detecting viruses in wastewater.