Objective  To establish a reverse osmosis technology-based method for enrichment of virus in water samples.

  Methods  Two inactivated virus vaccines and two viral nucleic acid plasmids were added into simulated water samples and detected with real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR) after reverse osmosis-based enrichment. Reverse osmosis membrane material, membrane pore size, and filtration time were optimized in the enrichments.

  Results  The enrichment efficiency increased with the decrease of pore size of the reverse osmosis membrane. The average virus enrichment efficiency of reverse osmosis membrane with the pore size of 0.10 μm was 22.86 ± 0.84% for 2 simulated water samples. The virus enrichment efficiency of nylon, cellulose acetate and polyethersulfone membranes were similar between each other. The enrichment efficiency goes up with the increase of filtration times, but the difference in the efficiency was not significant between two and three times of filtration.

  Conclusion  The efficiency can be up to 32.64% for the enrichment of polio virus in water samples using cellulose acetate filter membrane with 0.10 μm aperture and two times of filtration.