Rapid identification of coxsackie B viruses after immunoprecipitation and nucleic acid hybridization.

To circumvent the difficulties in concentrating sufficient virus from a clinical or environmental sample for detection and identification, we have used immunoprecipitation to rapidly concentrate coxsackie B viruses from both large and small sample volumes. Antiviral serum and killed Staphylococcus aureus cells as a protein A source were used to bind and collect the virus. Radioactively-labeled viral nucleotide sequences were used to identify the collected virus by nucleic acid hybridization. The technique is applicable to the rapid concentration of dilute viruses from extremely large sample volumes as well as the samples from which virus isolation can be difficult. the process requires less than 2 days to complete and should be adaptable to virus identification by cell culture or other standard means as well.