Isolation of viruses


In comparison with caesium chloride and sucrose, OptiPrep™ provides major improvements in the purification of viruses. Recovery of infectivity is higher and particle:infectivity ratios are lower, sometimes by as much as 10-100x.

The loss of surface glycoproteins that often occurs, with retroviruses in particular, in sucrose gradients, does not occur with OptiPrep™ gradients.

 

Re-infection of cells and many add-on techniques can be performed without the need for dialysis. Gradients prepared from OptiPrep™ may also be used to analyse virus assembly.


 

Over 30 different viruses have now been purified using OptiPrep™, including adenovirus, Herpes virus, HIV-1 and rAAV.

Some applications employ the major advantage of the ability of OptiPrep™ to form self-generated gradients; these reduce preparation time and improve reproducibility and resolution.