Unreliable inactivation of viruses by commonly used lysis buffers

Abstract

There is a common assumption that viral lysis buffers are sufficient to render viruses noninfectious. This assumption has a significant impact on the way biological samples are processed, labeled, and handled for shipment. Several lysis buffers, including TRIzol, AVL, RLT, MagMAX, and easyMAG, were examined for their capacity to inactivate representative viruses from multiple genera, including alphavirus, bunyavirus, flavivirus, adenovirus, enterovirus, influenza B, and simplexvirus. Viruses were noninfectious following treatment with TRIzol, MagMAX, and easyMAG buffers, while some viruses were still viable in cell cultures following treatment with AVL and RLT buffers. These results indicate the need to further evaluate the expectation that lysis buffers render live viruses inactive, allowing handling and processing of these samples under low-level containment conditions.