Purpose: The objective of this study was to evaluate the survival of HAV and AiV in cranberry-based juices (27% cranberry juice cocktail, CJ and a mixed juice with cranberry, MJ) over 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 14, and 21 days at refrigeration (4°C).
Methods: Two commercially available cranberry-based juices and phosphate buffered saline (PBS, control) were inoculated with each virus (final titer of 6 log PFU/ml) and stored at refrigeration over 21 days. At each time interval, the inoculated juices were serially diluted in cell-culture media and standard plaque assays with confluent host cells in 6-well plates were used to determine viral infectivity. Each experiment was carried out in duplicate and replicated thrice and data were statistically analyzed.
Results: Reductions ranging from 0.72±0.06 to 2.3±0.18 log PFU/ml and 0.63±0.02 to 1.84±0.14 log PFU/ml were obtained over 21 days for AiV with MJ and CJ, respectively. Reductions ranging from 0.67±0.03 to 1.09±0.1 and 0.93±0.27 to 1.49±0.18 log PFU/ml were obtained for HAV over 21 days at refrigeration in MJ and CJ, respectively. Both AiV and HAV were found to survive storage at refrigeration. In the PBS control, AiV showed merely 0.59 log PFU/ml reduction and HAV showed insignificant 0.04 log PFU/ml reduction (P≥0.05) after 21 days at refrigeration.
Significance: The data obtained from this study will help to determine the risk of HAV and AiV transmission from cranberry-based juices and provide data for risk-modeling and risk assessment studies.