A comparision of two methods to recover phages from soil samples

Environmental contamination caused by viruses has received extensive interest. The adsorption of viruses in soil can influence the extent of groundwater pollution. Many methods have been applied to detecting viruses in soil samples. Different elution methods lead to differences of viral titers. In this study, two elution methods were compared: glycine buffer and beef extract of phages from a soil sample. Experimental results indicated that, for both methods, the phage recovery increased with an increasing contact time between phages and soil sample. The phage recovery for the glycine buffer method increased only slightly when the elution time was increased from 2 to 10 min. However, the phage recovery for the beef extract method was higher when the elution time was increased to 6 min. At an elution time of 2 min, the glycine buffer method yielded a higher phage recovery than the beef extract method. Although both elution methods closely resembled each other in terms of the phage titers of an environmental sample, the glycine buffer method was simpler, faster, and would be more appropriate for detecting and enumerating phage when many soil or sediment samples are employed.