Scanning Electron Microscopy-Based Approach to Understand the Mechanism Underlying the Adhesion of Dengue Viruses on Ceramic Hydroxyapatite Columns

Although ceramic hydroxyapatite (HAp) chromatography has been used as an alternative method ultracentrifugation for the production of vaccines, the mechanism of virus separation is still obscure. In order to begin to understand the mechanisms of virus separation, HAp surfaces were observed by scanning electron microscopy after chromatography with dengue viruses. When these processes were performed without elution and with a 10–207 mM sodium phosphate buffer gradient elution, dengue viruses that were adsorbed to HAp were disproportionately located in the columns. However, when eluted with a 10–600 mM sodium phosphate buffer gradient, few viruses were observed on the HAp surface. After incubating the dengue viruses that were adsorbed on HAp beads at 37°C and 2°C, the sphericity of the dengue viruses were reduced with an increase in incubation temperature. These results suggested that dengue virus was adsorbed to the HAp surface by electronic interactions and could be eluted by high-salt concentration buffers, which are commonly used in protein purification. Furthermore, virus fusion was thought to occur with increasing temperature, which implied that virus-HAp adhesion was similar to virus-cell adhesion.