Use of PEG, Polyethylene glycol, to characterize the diversity of environmental viruses

This article focuses on the use of polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a virioplankton concentrating agent to characterize the diversity of natural communities of aquatic viruses. PEG is well known as good inductor of attractive interactions that crystallize viruses in the interpolymer spaces between PEG molecules. Added to a co-precipitant it allows an easy and rapid concentration of virioplankton. A final step of purification to remove PEG allows obtaining virioplankton concentrates of optimal quality (i) to characterize the genomic diversity of viruses via Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis or other molecular analyses, and (ii) to observe viral morphotypes using transmission electronic microscopy (TEM). Experimental procedure described was successfully applied on various freshor salt-water ecosystems exhibiting different physicochemical and biological conditions.