Tunable and label-free virus enrichment for ultrasensitive virus detection using carbon nanotube arrays

• Published in: Science advances 2016-10, Vol.2 (10), p.e1601026-e1601026
• Main Authors: Yeh, Yin-Ting, Tang, Yi, Sebastian, Aswathy, Dasgupta, Archi, Perea-Lopez, Nestor, Albert, Istvan, Lu, Huaguang, Terrones, Mauricio, Zheng, Si-Yang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biomedical Engineering; SciAdv r-articles
• ISSN: 2375-2548; 2375-2548
• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1601026

Viral infectious diseases can erupt unpredictably, spread rapidly, and ravage mass populations. Although established methods, such as polymerase chain reaction, virus isolation, and next-generation sequencing have been used to detect viruses, field samples with low virus count pose major challenges in virus surveillance and discovery. We report a unique carbon nanotube size-tunable enrichment microdevice (CNT-STEM) that efficiently enriches and concentrates viruses collected from field samples. The channel sidewall in the microdevice was made by growing arrays of vertically aligned nitrogen-doped multiwalled CNTs, where the intertubular distance between CNTs could be engineered in the range of 17 to 325 nm to accurately match the size of different viruses. The CNT-STEM significantly improves detection limits and virus isolation rates by at least 100 times. Using this device, we successfully identified an emerging avian influenza virus strain [A/duck/PA/02099/2012(H11N9)] and a novel virus strain (IBDV/turkey/PA/00924/14). Our unique method demonstrates the early detection of emerging viruses and the discovery of new viruses directly from field samples, thus creating a universal platform for effectively remediating viral infectious diseases.