Optical Quantification by Nanopores of Viruses, Extracellular Vesicles, and Nanoparticles

Abstract

Nanopores combined with optical approaches can be used to detect viral particles. In this work, we demonstrate the ability of hydrodynamical driving and optical sensing to identify and quantify viral particles in a biological sample. We have developed a simple and rapid method which requires only fluorescent labeling of the particles and can therefore be applied to a wide range of virus type. The system operates in real time and at the single particle level while providing a low error on concentration (4%) and a low limit of detection of 10⁵ particles/mL for an acquisition time of 60 s with the ability to increase the acquisition time to achieve a lower limit.

Keywords: Concentration measurement; Extracellular Vesicles; Nanoparticles; Nanopore; Virus; Zero Mode Waveguide.