Airborne influenza virus surveillance platform using paper-based immunosensors and a growth-based virus aerosol concentrator

Abstract

The measurement of respiratory viruses in indoor air is critical foreffectively preventing the spread of diseases. This is typically accomplished bycounting the nucleic acids or plaques of air-sampled viruses. Herein, we present agrowth-based airborne virus surveillance (G-AVS) platform based on paper-basedelectrochemical immunosensors for targeting hemagglutinin (HA) and nucleopro-tein (NP), and water-condensation air sampling for the quantitative measurement ofairborne influenza viruses. The measurements, compared with RT-qPCR,demonstrated consistency between the two. In the measurements of airborneinfluenza viruses conducted in an elementary school using G-AVS, 23% (4/17) ofindoor air samples were positive, with concentrations ranging from 1.7 × 104 to 1.6× 106 gene copies/m3, while losses in the HA relative to NP were 48−75% at arelative humidity of 27.0−36.8% and 60 min air sampling, similar to infectivitiesreported in the literature. This platform has the potential for rapid and cost-effectiveairborne virus measurement.