Optical detection of infectious SARS-CoV-2 virions by counting spikes

Denis S. Kudryavtsev, Vera A. Mozhaeva, Igor A. Ivanov, Andrey E. Siniavin, Alexey S. Kalmykov, Anton S. Gritchenko, Boris N. Khlebtsov, Shao Peng Wang, Bin Kang, Victor I. Tsetlin, Victor I. Balykin, Pavel N. Melentiev

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Existing methods for the mass detection of viruses are limited to the registration of small amounts of a viral genome or specific protein markers. In spite of high sensitivity, the applied methods cannot distinguish between virulent viral particles and non-infectious viral particle debris. We report an approach to solve this long-standing challenge using the SARS-CoV-2 virus as an example. We show that wide-field optical microscopy with the state-of-the-art mesoscopic fluorescent labels, formed by a core-shell plasmonic nanoparticle with fluorescent dye molecules in the core-shell that are strongly coupled to the plasmonic nanoparticle, not only rapidly, i.e. in less than 20 minutes after sampling, detects SARS-CoV-2 virions directly in a patient sample without a pre-concentration step, but can also distinguish between infectious and non-infectious virus strains by counting the spikes on the lipid envelope of individual viral particles.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)12424-12430
Number of pages7
JournalNanoscale
Volume16
Issue number26
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 3 2024
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science

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