Norovirus (NoV) is the leading cause of epidemic and sporadic gastroenteritis worldwide; a high number of those cases are attributed to the consumption of contaminated food. Crop producers have used several strategies to inactivate the virus present in these products and thus stop the NoV transmission chain. Physical methods such as gamma radiation show excellent results in the inactivation of bacteria, but its effect on NoV has been little studied. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of gamma radiation for NoV inactivation, and over the surface topographic characteristics of strawberry cells, as a prototype of soft fruit. A 10% suspension of GII norovirus-positive stool samples were treated with either 200 mg/L of sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) or gamma-irradiated at doses of 5, 10, 15 and 20 kilograys (kGy). Viral inactivation was determined by measuring the integrity of viral capsid using RNase A alone or in combination with proteinase K followed by RT-qPCR. The effect over cellular surface topology characteristics of the fruit was measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and confocal microscopy. High doses of radiation (20 kGy) were necessary to detect a significant (p < 0.05) decrease of up to 1.26 log₁₀ viral copy number. This dose significantly (p < 0.05) raises the root means square roughness (Rq), which affects directly the quality and texture of the product. The gamma irradiation doses tested in this study were not enough to inactivate NoV. The allowed gamma irradiation doses for fresh produce does not alter the surface topology of the fruit, but they affect the content of fluorescent compounds, responsible for the antioxidant activity of the fruit.

诺如病毒（NoV）是全球流行和偶发性胃肠炎的主要原因；这些情况中的很大一部分归因于食用受污染的食物。作物生产者已经采用了几种策略来灭活这些产品中存在的病毒，从而终止了NoV传播链。诸如伽马射线等物理方法在灭活细菌方面显示出极好的结果，但是对NoV的影响却鲜有研究。这项研究旨在评估γ射线对NoV灭活的影响，以及整个草莓细胞表面形貌特征（作为软果的原型）的影响。用200 mg / L的次氯酸钠（NaClO）或以5、10、15和20 kgray（kGy）的剂量进行γ射线处理，将GII诺如病毒阳性粪便样本的10％悬浮液处理。病毒灭活是通过单独使用RNase A或与蛋白酶K组合并随后进行RT-qPCR测量病毒衣壳的完整性来确定的。通过原子力显微镜（AFM）和共聚焦显微镜测量对水果的细胞表面拓扑特征的影响。高剂量辐射（20 kGy）对于检测显着（p  <0.05）减少高达1.26 log _10的病毒拷贝数。该剂量显着（p  <0.05）会提高均方根粗糙度（Rq），直接影响产品的质量和质地。在这项研究中测试的伽玛射线剂量不足以灭活NoV。新鲜产品所允许的伽马辐照剂量不会改变水果的表面拓扑，但会影响负责水果抗氧化活性的荧光化合物的含量。