DIFFERENTIAL INACTIVATION OF SURROGATE VIRUSES WITH MEROCYANINE 540

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Abstract
Bacteriophages may be useful as surrogates for animal viruses when the virucidal properties of different photosensitizing compounds are initially investigated. We studied photoinactivation of four bacteriophages, φX174, T7, PRD1, and φ6, by the dye merocyanine 540 (MC540) (15 μ g/mL). Merocyanine 540 (MC540) should be most effective with lipid-containing viruses, since it is primarily lipophilic (but also binds to proteins). Two of the phages, PRD1 and φ6 contain lipid, with only φ6 having an external lipoprotein envelope. Filtered radiation (450–600nm) from a 750 W projector was used at16–100 W/m2. The survival curves of the different viruses clearly demonstrated different levels of sensitivity to photoinactivation by MC540, with φ6 (Do= 1.5 kJ/m2) being the most sensitive, followed by T7 (21-fold less sensitive). While both PRD1 and (J>6 have lipid components, only φ6 was photoinactivated by MC540. Thus the internal lipid components of PRD1 were not sufficient to allow photoinactivation by this dye, at fluences up to 300 kJ/m2. For comparison, we also photoinactivated Herpes simplex virus (Do= 0.053 kJ/m2) and found it to be 28-fold more sensitive than φ6 to photoinactivation by the same concentration of MC540. Thus φ6 may be used as a surrogate for enveloped human viruses for photoinactivation by lipophilic dyes, but the results may only be useful qualitatively.

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