Evaluation of a simple ultrafiltration method for concentration of infective canine parvovirus and feline coronavirus from cell culture supernatants

Enrichment of viral infectious titers following its propagation by cell culture is desirable for various experimental studies. The performance of an ultrafiltration (UF) process to concentrate infectious titers of non-enveloped Canine parvovirus 2 (CPV-2) and enveloped Feline coronavirus (FCoV) obtained from cell culture supernatants was evaluated in this study, and compared with ultracentrifugation (UC) process. A mean gain of > 1.0 log(10) TCID(50)/mL was obtained for CPV-2 with UF, which was comparable with the gain obtained by UC. On the other hand, the gain was lower (0.7–1.0 log(10) TCID(50)/mL) for FCoV with UF in contrast to UC (> 2.0 log(10) TCID(50)/mL). However, the lower retentate volume following UC (∼120 fold) compared to that following UF (∼10 fold) for either of the viruses suggests a trend of increased infectious titer retention in UF concentrates relative to UC concentrates. The simplistic UF process evaluated here thus has the potential for use in applications requiring increased infectious titers of CPV-2 and FCoV.