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Inactivation of Some Coliphages with Copper-Thiol Complexes

Institute of Medical Microbiology Institute of Biochemistry

S. Höglund

University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden

When copper salts are mixed with substances containing thiol groups, complexes are formed whose composition is determined by the concentration of the two components. After mixing copper and thiol compounds in certain concentrations the mixtures became strongly virucidal for T3, T5 and X 174 phages, while T2 and T4 were affected only at higher concentrations of copper. Unless otherwise stated, coliphage T5 was used as test organism in these experiments.

Together with a final concentration of 5 x 10^-5M-CuCl₂ the thiol compounds cysteine and dithio-pentaerythrite at certain concentrations had a strong virucidal activity, while no such activity was demonstrated for the corresponding disulphide compounds (Fig. 1). Dithio-pentaerythrite but not cysteine was active with a CuCl₂ concentration of 5 x 10^-6M. At this copper concentration thioglycollic acid, 2,3-dimercaptopropanol and dihydrothioctic acid were also virucidal, while glutathione was active only with 5x10^-5M-CuCl₂, and the disulphide compound thioctic acid (-lipoic acid) was inactive even at the higher concentration of copper.

Received 15 May 1967; accepted 31 May 1967.