The sensitivity of surface plasmon resonance based viral aerosol detection

Abstract

It is well known that bioaerosols pose hazard to human health. Bioaerosols could be a cause of various severe diseases. Rapid and precise detection of airborne pathogens in different environments has received considerable attention in recent years. Earlier, we explored a Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) protocol in conjunction with our recently developed personal bioaerosol sampler for rapid detection of airborne viruses. The developed label-free approach has been verified under controlled laboratory conditions. The immunosensor based technique was capable of detecting airborne virus in a broad range of concentrations within minutes with high accuracy and specificity.

This project is a logical continuation of our previous study where we describe the performance evaluation study of two immunosensor types (differed in surface chemistry) for direct viral detection. Common viral surrogate MS2 bacteriophage was employed as a model organism. The detection limits of developed SPR techniques were found to be 1.12×106 PFU/mL and 2.2×107 PFU/mL for the COOH1 and COOH5 sensor types respectively. Our data confirmed that COOH1 based sensor is more sensitive and robust regarding detection of small viral objects like MS2 phage.

The combination of SPR procedure with the bioaerosol sampler allowed detecting virus in the air within less than two minutes. The minimal detectable viral concentration in the air for 1 min of sampling time was found to be 1.9×107 PFU per litre. Our findings justify that the SPR technique is fully suitable for the bioaerosol monitoring applications. The proposed technology, based on the direct detection of viral aerosols, could be applied to various viral pathogens infectious to animals or humans, and be further realised in a concept of portable real-time bioaerosol monitor.