Poliovirus: generation, quantification, propagation, purification, and storage.

Poliovirus (PV) is the prototypical picornavirus. It is a non-enveloped RNA virus with a small (~7.5-kb) genome of positive polarity. It has long served as a model to study RNA virus biology, pathogenesis, and evolution. cDNA clones of several strains are available, and infectious virus can be produced by the transfection of in vitro transcribed viral genomes into an appropriate host cell. PV infects many human and non-human primate cell lines including HeLa and HeLa S3 cells, and can grow to high titer in culture. Protocols for the production, propagation, quantification, and purification of PV are presented.