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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2021.10.29.466519

A biosafety level 2 surrogate for studying SARS-CoV-2 survival in food processing environmental biofilms

Featherstone, A. B.·Dass, S. C.
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Abstract

Meat processing plants have been at the center of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. There are several factors that contribute to the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in meat processing plants and one of the factors is the formation of a multi-species biofilm with virus. Biofilm can act as a reservoir in protecting, harboring, and dispersing SARS-CoV-2 from biofilm to the meat processing facility environment. We used Murine Hepatitis Virus (MHV) as a surrogate for SARS-CoV-2 virus and meat processing facility drain samples to develop mixed-species biofilms on commonly found materials in processing facilities (Stainless-Steel (SS), PVC and tiles). The results showed that MHV was able to integrate into the environmental biofilm and survived for a period of 5 days at 7{degrees}C. There was no significate difference between the viral-environmental biofilm biovolumes developed on different materials SS, PVC, and tiles. There was a 2-fold increase in the virus-environmental biofilm biovolume when compared to environmental biofilm by itself. These results indicate a complex virus-environmental biofilm interaction which is providing enhanced protection for the survival of viral particles with the environmental biofilm community.

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Featherstone, A. B., Dass, S. C.. 2021-11-01. A biosafety level 2 surrogate for studying SARS-CoV-2 survival in food processing environmental biofilms. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.29.466519

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