Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Sanmark, Enni
• Kuula, Joel
• Laitinen, Sirpa
• Oksanen, Lotta-Maria A.H.
• Bamford, Dennis H.
• Atanasova, Nina S.

Titel

Safe use of PHI6 IN the experimental studies

Ist Teil von

• Heliyon, 2023-02, Vol.9 (2), p.e13565-e13565, Article e13565

Ort / Verlag

England: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Surrogate viruses theoretically provide an opportunity to study the viral spread in an indoor environment, a highly needed understanding during the pandemic, in a safe manner to humans and the environment. However, the safety of surrogate viruses for humans as an aerosol at high concentrations has not been established. In this study, Phi6 surrogate was aerosolized at high concentration (Particulate matter2.5: ∼1018 μg m−3) in the studied indoor space. Participants were closely followed for any symptoms. We measured the bacterial endotoxin concentration of the virus solution used for aerosolization as well as the concentration in the room air containing the aerosolized viruses. In addition, we measured how the bacterial endotoxin concentration of the sample was affected by different traditional virus purification procedures. Despite the purification, bacterial endotoxin concentration of the Phi6 was high (350 EU/ml in solution used for aerosols) with both (two) purification protocols. Bacterial endotoxins were also detected in aerosolized form, but below the occupational exposure limit of 90 EU/m3. Despite these concerns, no symptoms were observed in exposed humans when they were using personal protective equipment. In the future, purification protocols should be developed to reduce associated bacterial endotoxin levels in enveloped bacterial virus specimens to ensure even safer research use of surrogate viruses. •Surrogate viruses enable (safe) opportunities to study and model the transmission of different viral pathogens.•The safety aspects of using bacteriophage Phi6 specimens in aerosol form have not been studied earlier.•ABacterial endotoxin content was detectable after both purification methods illustrating the future need for removal protocols.•None of the participants experienced irritation or allergy when using proper personal protective equipment.