Efficient Microfluidic-Based Air Sampling/Monitoring Platform for Detection of Aerosol SARS-CoV-2 On-site

Anal Chem. 2021 Mar 9;93(9):4270-4276. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.0c05154. Epub 2021 Feb 26.

Abstract

Airborne pathogens have been considered as highly infectious and transmittable between humans. With the pandemic outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an on-site diagnostic system-integrated airborne pathogen-monitoring machine is recommended by experts for preventing and controlling the early stage β-coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spread. In this work, a small-volume rotating microfluidic fluorescence chip-integrated aerosol SARS-CoV-2 sampling system was constructed to satisfy the demand for rapid on-site sample collection and detection of SARS-CoV-2. The rotating microfluidic fluorescence system with small volume has very high sensitivity in the detection of SARS-CoV-2 (detection limit of 10 copies/μL with the shortest Ct value of 15 min), which is comparable to reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The precision variation coefficients within/between batches are very low [coefficient of variation (CV) % ≤ 5.0%]. Our work has passed the comprehensive inspection of the microfluidic chip performance by the Shanghai Medical Device Testing Institute [National Medical Inspection (Design) no. 4408] and successfully tested 115 clinical samples. The integrated system exhibits 100% specificity, high sensitivity (10 copies/μL), and good precision (CV % ≤ 5.0%) in the rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2, thus realizing rapid monitoring and diagnostics of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid on-site.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aerosols / analysis
  • Air
  • COVID-19 / diagnosis*
  • COVID-19 / virology*
  • COVID-19 Testing / instrumentation*
  • COVID-19 Testing / methods*
  • Fluorescence
  • Humans
  • Lab-On-A-Chip Devices*
  • Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • SARS-CoV-2 / genetics*
  • SARS-CoV-2 / isolation & purification*
  • Sensitivity and Specificity

Substances

  • Aerosols