Airborne pathogens causing infectious diseases are often highly transmittable between humans. Therefore, an airborne pathogen-monitoring system capable of on-site detection and identification would aid tremendously in preventing and controlling the early stages of pathogen spread. Here, we describe an integrated sampling/monitoring platform for on-site and real-time detection of airborne viruses. We used MS2 bacteriophage and avian influenza virus (AIV) H1N1 to evaluate bioaerosol sampling and detection performance of the platform. Our results show that, within 20 min, aerosolized viruses can be detected using the signal of near-infrared (NIR)-to-NIR nanoprobes. The pretreatment of the sampling pad improved the transfer efficiency of MS2 viruses to the detection zone, compared to an untreated pad. Our platform could detect concentrations as low as 104.294 50% egg infectious dose (EID50)/m3 AIVs collected from a cloacal swab sample (104.838 EID50/mL). These results indicate that our sampling/monitoring platform could be applied for the early detection of biological hazards in various fields.
Keywords: airborne pathogen; influenza virus; lateral flow immunoassay; nanoprobe; rapid detection.