ROTAVIRUS QUANTIFICATION - A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE ENUMERATIVE AND THE MPN TECHNIQUES

A commonly used technique to isolate rotaviruses from a water environm ent involves the inoculation on cell culture associated with the revel ation of the viral multiplication by indirect immunofluorescence. The results of the experiment using this methodology may be expressed eith er with an enumerative technique or with a MPN technique. We have foun d that the enumerative method provided the highest yield as opposed to the MPN method by a ratio close to 3.7. According to the experimental conditions that were used, the enumerative method should be favored f or the detection of viruses from a medium with low viral density br wh en quantifying viruses from a given sample. This work involves a compa rative study where the MPN method is very attractive because of the ea se of implementation and the rapidity with which results may be obtain ed.